AutoCad 2000 DXF Question

[Holmes_ca]

Hello Bill, Gerry,

Problem, I produce a drawing and save as, then I click Export and change into a DXF file so that it will produce a G-code in Mach2, when I try to close Autocad a window appears informing I have changed the drawing do I want to save, if I click yes, autocad will not close, if I click no, autocad closes, but when I open autocad again the original drawing has been deleted, this is a nuicence, because perhaps I would like to change something in the original drawing, is there something in autocad that I can do to rectify this?,

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[wjbzone]

Edmund,
I think what you are doing is saving the .dxf file but not the .dwg file. That is why Autocad is asking you if you want to save. When you click yes, do a file->save and name the drawing. It will be saved as a .dwg file.

If the .dxf is saved, you can import it back into autocad (using the "dxfin" command). Then you can save the .dwg (the native Autocad file).
Bill

[Holmes_ca]

Thank you Bill, I will give that a try,

[t_dig]

I have had quarky things happen like this with Autocad. When I can't figure out why something like this is happening, I always try the following:

In your dwg file, do a wblock and block the geometry out and save it as a new name. Now go into the new name file and see if it works correctly when you do the dxfout. If it works, then you can delete your original and rename the new name file to what the original was named. Alway make a copy of the drawing and place it somewhere before trying stuff like this.

[ger21]

It's not a quarky thing. It's the way AutoCAD works. .dwg is AutoCAD's native format. If you only save as a .dxf, it will always ask if you want to save as .dwg.

If you may want to change the drawing in the future, always save the drawing as .dwg, and just export the .dxf when you need it.

Or just use either my VBA macro or Bill's VLISP program (both available in this forum) to create gcode in AutoCAD. I plan on redoing mine in a few months to be more useful, btw.

[Holmes_ca]

Thanks Gerry and T_Dig, I have been playing with autocad with not too much luck with DXFin, so I did a new drawing and saved as dwg, then saved again as dwg1, so I have two drawings of same, then saved dwg1 as dxf, it then asked me do I want to save as dwg or dxf so I chose dxf, tried to load in Mach2 but it refused, so, I went back into autocad, chose dwg1 to try to change into dxf again by exporting, but window had metafile and no dxf, I tried 4/5 times to no avail, so I chose other drawing and changed to dxf this time it loaded into mach2 successfully, and I still have the two drawings in autocad, still a bit confused but happy,

regarding two programs you suggest, I think I tried Bills with some success, at this moment I have purchased a program developed by KenTech.inc its called KipWareM, I am trying to master it because it is conversational, are you familiar with it, if you have time I would like your opinion.

Yours Truly

[ger21]

then saved dwg1 as dxf, it then asked me do I want to save as dwg or dxf so I chose dxf,

When you choose save as, just change the file type box at the bottom to R12 .dxf I don't know what you mean when you say it asked which you wanted, I've never seen that?

Always use R12 .dxf's, they are much more compatible with other programs.

so, I went back into autocad, chose dwg1 to try to change into dxf again by exporting, but window had metafile and no dxf, I tried 4/5 times to no avail,

You can't "export" a .dxf, you have to use "save as"

regarding two programs you suggest, I think I tried Bills with some success, at this moment I have purchased a program developed by KenTech.inc its called KipWareM, I am trying to master it because it is conversational, are you familiar with it, if you have time I would like your opinion.

Yours Truly

I've heard of it, but have no experience with it.

Let us know if you have any more questions.

[Holmes_ca]

Thank you Gerry, At the moment I have no more questions at this time but I will follow your directions re: R12.dxf,

[kevpau]

if you save dxf,,,,, autocad asks to save dwg to same file, (you now saved 2 files) say no it's gone..... say yes it saves but autocad will stay open until you close it. You can open a dxf file and save as a dwg file works both ways