Alternatively, you can open the Xref Manager or Image Manager dialog box, which reveals any missing xref or raster image files. (See Chapter 13 for details.)
Write down each missing file and then tell the sender to get on the ball and send you the missing pieces. While you’re at it, tell that person to buy this book and read this chapter!
Press the F2 key after opening
If you receive drawings with custom TrueType font files (files whose extensions are TTF), you must install those files before Windows and AutoCAD will recognize them. Choose Start>Settings>Control Panel. (In Windows XP, choose Start>Control Panel and then click the Switch to Classic View link in order to see the Fonts applet.) Double-click the Fonts icon to open the Fonts window, and then choose File>Install New Font.
In Chapter 13, I warn you about the complications of xref paths and the potential perils of AutoCAD not being able to locate xrefs if you move project folders around or transfer drawings to or from someone else. A similar danger exists for raster image files (Chapter 13) and font files (Chapter 9). The ETRANSMIT command, described earlier in this chapter, does a good job of gathering together dependent xrefs, raster files, and font files, but it can’t gather what AutoCAD can’t locate.
AutoCAD’s Reference Manager utility is a real lifesaver if you find yourself suffering from xref, raster image, or font path perils — whether they occur in your own company or when sending files to or receiving them from others. Reference Manager is a separate utility program, not a command inside AutoCAD.
Follow these steps to launch the utility:
1. Choose Start>Programs>Autodesk>AutoCAD 2005>Reference Manager.
The Reference Manager program opens, as shown in Figure 16-3.
Figure 16-3: The Reference Manager.
2. Choose the Add Drawings button to add one or more DWG files to the drawings pane on the left.
3. Click the Export Report button to create a text report listing all the dependent files and their paths, or click the Edit Selected Paths button to modify paths.
Click the Help button in Reference Manager to find out more about the utility’s capabilities.
If you always keep parent and child DWG files in the same folder — the simplest approach to dealing with xref paths — then you probably won’t need to use the Reference Manager.
Drawing Web Format — Not Just for the Web
In a previous section of this chapter, I explain how you can exchange drawings via e-mail and FTP. That’s all the Internet connectivity that many AutoCAD users need, but if you’re curious about connecting drawings to the Web or sharing drawings with people who don’t have AutoCAD, this section is for you.
The AutoCAD Web features are built on two pieces of technology:
? A special lightweight drawing format called DWF that Autodesk originally developed especially for putting drawings on the Web.
? A free program from Autodesk called Autodesk Express Viewer that enables anyone to view and print DWF files without having AutoCAD.
The AutoCAD DWG format works well for storing drawing information on local and network disks, but the high precision and large number of object properties that AutoCAD uses make for comparatively large files.
To overcome this size problem and encourage people to publish drawings on the Web, Autodesk developed an alternative lightweight vector format for representing AutoCAD drawings: DWF (Design Web Format). A DWF file is a more compact representation of a DWG file. DWF uses less space — and less transfer time over the Web and e-mail — because it’s less precise and doesn’t have all the information that’s in the DWG file.
DWF hasn’t exactly taken the Web by storm; Autodesk has gradually recast it as a format for electronic plotting, or
A DWF file captures a single, plotted view of your drawing, so, unlike a DWG file, it can provide a relatively unambiguous snapshot of what you want to see on paper. With a DWG file, on the other hand, you have to provide lots of information to other people — drawing view, scale, plot style settings, and so on — in order for them to get the same plotting results that you did. Potential ePlotting scenarios include:
? Architects and other consultants on a building project periodically upload DWF files to the project Web site. Architects and engineers with some minimal CAD knowledge can review the drawings on-screen and create their own hard-copy plots, if necessary. Principals and clients who don’t want anything to do with CAD, or even with computers, can have their secretaries or other employees create hard-copy plots for them to examine.
? When Internet-savvy people need hard-copy prints of your drawings, you e-mail a zipped file containing DWF files, along with the URL for Autodesk Express Viewer and simple instructions for creating plots from the DWF files. (Be ready to walk them through the process by phone the first time or two to reduce anxiety on everyone’s part.)
? A CAD plotting service bureau encourages its customers to send DWF files instead of DWG files for plotting. The DWF files are much smaller and require less intervention on the part of the service bureau’s employees.
The ePlot concept debuted in AutoCAD 2000 and hasn’t yet caught on in a big way. Autodesk hopes to establish ePlot and the DWF format as a standard for CAD documents similar to what Adobe’s PDF has become for word processing documents. It remains to be seen whether ePlotting will become a popular way to generate hard-copy output. In particular, many people outside of CAD-using companies don’t have access to large-format plotters. They’re limited to 8??11-inch — or, at best, 11?17-inch — reduced-size check plots. Consequently, many people won’t be able to plot your DWF files to scale, and may not even be able to plot them large enough to read everything.
Don’t be afraid to try ePlotting with colleagues inside or outside your company, but don’t become too dependent on it until you see whether the rest of the CAD world shares your enthusiasm. Otherwise, you risk becoming the only one who’s willing to use your DWF files for plotting — in which case the next version of the feature will be called mePlot.
AutoCAD 2005 uses version 6 of the DWF format, which Autodesk introduced with AutoCAD 2004. (The DWF format changes at least as often as the DWG format, as Autodesk adds new features to AutoCAD and new Design Web Format capabilities.) The most important new feature in DWF 6 is multiple sheets in a single DWF file, as shown in Figure 16-4. It’s like stapling together a set of drawings, except that you never have to worry about your stapler being empty.
Figure 16-4: One DWF file can include multiple sheets.
As I describe in the previous section, AutoCAD treats DWF files like electronic plots, or ePlots. You create a DWF file from the current drawing just as if you were plotting it to a piece of paper, as I describe in Chapter 12. The only difference is that, in the Plot dialog box’s Printer/Plotter area, you choose the plotter configuration named
