forum.datacad.com

Hey y'all.
I'm working with an Architect. He just sent me an AutoCad file to work on. I opened it up with DC19, and one of the things I notice is the doors (which are supposed to be yellow) are white. I checked the layer list that came in with the file. Yes, the A-FLOR-DOOR layer is shown as yellow, I "alt-I" one of the doors, and the data on the side actually tells me it is yellow, when in fact, my eyes are telling me it's white.

So I decided to explode the doors. I tried to explode by entity. "0 entities exploded" I tried area. same result. I was going to try group, but I wasn't sure if all doors in the project were tied together as a group, so I went to the layer manager, and made A-FLOR-DOOR "active only" which made EVERYTHING disappear. even the doors. So I turned all layers back on, and everything except the doors came back. Like they never existed in the first place. I closed the drawing file and re-opened it and they were back again. This time I immediately made that layer active only and exploded with the "explode symbol" button on. It worked, and now I can change the color to yellow so it will print with the correct pen, but what is this going to do to him when I send it back saved as a DWG and those doors are not symbols anymore?

Anybody have experiences with AutoCad like this?

haven't experience the problem.
I would do a test on the original version, do a export to dwg and send to acaduser, and see if they translate back ok. Could be the color mapping during import/export.
Go to Tools/DXF/DWG Color map and see what is happening


Instead of exploding the symbols, edit them in the drawing and change the color on 1, and they should all change.

I don't use the color pallet translator. I just open the DWG with the DWG/DXF color pallet. It already has the colors aligned with his AutoCad color pallet.
But I will try your idea of changing the color of the door symbols.... Tried it. It didn't work. Probably because it DC already thinks they are yellow. Yet they are indeed white. when I exploded them and "alt-Identified" them, DC reported them as being white. Which they are. I then changed them to yellow, but what is that going to do to my architect's file when he open's the file up?

Ok, so in the Program Preference, DXF/DWG that box is not checked.
Where you just change/color and pick the symbol?
I was suggesting that you right-click on a symbol, pick bottom Symbol Tools, then top Edit Symbol to actually edit the symbol definition in the file.
By exploding them, the acader probably will not like it, I know I wouldn't.

Roger D wrote:Ok, so in the Program Preference, DXF/DWG that box is not checked.
Where you just change/color and pick the symbol?
I was suggesting that you right-click on a symbol, pick bottom Symbol Tools, then top Edit Symbol to actually edit the symbol definition in the file.
By exploding them, the acader probably will not like it, I know I wouldn't.

THAAAAATs what I was getting at. I don't want to upset him too much/ask a lot of questions, before he decides this/I'm more trouble than I'm worth, so I'm trying to fix as much of this on my own as I can. But I did NOT know what you just told me to do, so I will try that! Thanks!

Wait... when I right click, all I get is a change from Utility to Edit menu, back and forth. I tried alt-identify to actually "pick" the symbol, but right-clicking after that just takes me back to the main Edit menu. Can you be more specific?

Right-Click with the cursor over the door symbol.
Or, change you Program Preference in the Drawing Tab, so a double click on a symbol with open the editor.

Here are two screen shots of what I'm talking about. The first one is a shot of the symbol. As you can see, it is yellow. The second is Identified. It is identified as Green. This only happens with symbols. What is going on? EDIT TO ADD: Somehow the shots are reversed, but you get the picture.

Did what you said. Here's what that looks like. How do I get out of this thing? I'm stuck!

The active color of the layer is separate from the colors of the entities in the symbol.

If you edit the symbol in the editor, you can change the colors to what they should be, and then save it, and all the instances of that symbol will change. You change the active of the layer, too, if you want, but that only changes the color of the insertion point.

Geroge wrote:How do I get out of this thing? I'm stuck!

To close the symbol, click the close 'X' button like you would close a drawing, or via File, Close.

Think of symbols like a bucket. It contains other entities. The Symbol bucket in this case is green. Inside the symbol the entities are yellow. The green color of the symbol doesn't really do anything usually. It's the color of the entities within the symbol that matter.