Greetings,
Well, yes and no. You cannot edit within unexploded symbols in DataCAD -- yet; this is one of the new features that we should see in v12. However, there are at least two ways to do this now:
Explode the current symbol, change all the linetypes to dashed (or for ellipses, either replace them with the four radii, or manually break them up), and then save a new version of the symbol; and just Replace the ones you need to show as demolished.
You can use an XRef (either a self-XRef, or a "regular" one), and use the Highlighting feature to show them dashed. I use this method for the entire existing plan, so that all the walls, doors, windows, and fixtures that you erase in the new/proposed plan, shows up as dashed since it is part of the XRef.
So, this not only solves the dashed symbol issue, but adds a lot of other info to a drawing more easily.
If you have a separate existing conditions file, or if you have it in the same file, then do a Save As or, make a copy of the existing plans into the layers that you will modify for the new/proposed plans. Then add a layer to the new/proposed plans for the XRef, and then add the XRef using the layers/file for the existing plan, and Highlight it. It also helps to lock that layer. Then erase the portions of the copied plan that you want to remove -- and voila! You'll see a dashed demo plan -- easy, huh?
The other advantage this method has, is that if you discover something that is not correct or was omitted from the existing plans, just change/add it, and the XRef is automatically corrected!
