Unprotect Autocad Drawing

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Oliverio Gallman

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Aug 3, 2024, 4:31:10 PM8/3/24

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Hello and thanks for reading. - I have searched all over Google, the Adobe Forums, and other online Tech Tips trying to solve this, but so far have not been able to come up with anything. - I realize this is not an earth shattering issue and most users would be unaffected, but it is a drawdown in our productivity as well as a nuisance.

My company works with a lot of *.pdf documents which were originally created with AutoCAD and sent to us for analysis . - With DC 10, almost all of those documents now have comments or pop-up boxes. The issue is that these were originally large 24"x36" drawings so they contain a lot of information, even more when it's loading a single page on a 24" monitor. - As we try to review a full page, even on our large monitor, panning thru a document using the hand tool almost always results in grabbing a symbol of some sort. If you accidentally grab one ( and it's hard not too ), Adobe DC determines you are selecting an AutoCAD text box, so it immediately disables the pan function and then turns the symbol into a blue box and calls up the Autocad SHX Text box. - This makes panning/scrolling problematic.

Today, the 1 page document I am currently working on has 1,688 comments - If I bring up the comment App, I can hide all comments, which works fine for the document I am in, but as soon as the next document is loaded, the comments come back. -

Is there a global - sticky - setting that can control all files or is there a selection to turn this back into an actual "flat file" with no AutoCAD functionality ? - Like back in the good old days when Adobe was so simple.

I have the same issue sometimes with plan sheets I receive from external partners that I need to incorporate into my plan set. I don't have a solution to turn this off, but a work around I use is to "print" the PDF file to the Adobe PDF printer from my list of printers. In the print screen, there is a section for "Comments and Forms", select document only and it should strip away the SHX text data that is appearing as a comment in the PDF file, while keeping the actual text in the file that I can read & review.

I also had this problem. I am trying to add comments and then the comment cursor selects the SHX text!!. And I wanted to make a comment to the text, because it's wrong. For some reason my PC was extremely slow working in these PDF's with SHX. With this work around my PC is at its max speed again... Why do we use PDF, because it does not draw much resources from the PC, these SHX texts inhibit the functional use of Adobe and PDF!

Hello, this solution avoid PDF SHX Comments, but it flattens the text in PDF and the document is no more searchable. Is there any way where we can convert the Autocad DWG file to searchable PDF without Autocad SHX Text?

Use a true type font. The "standard" font in autocad is simplex.shx, if you pllot to pdf with a true type font, such as simplex_IV25, the pdf will be searchable, smaller, and without teh AutoCAD SHX comments.

Many of us are experiencing the same issue. However, the issue starts with the individual that creates the PDF from AutoCAD. We are not the ones creating the problem, we are just trying to deal with it after the fact. The method of reprinting the PDF in my experience reduces the file size to about half its original size. It is a pain, but it does help. So the most direct solution is the answer, but we need to get this information to the people creating these files with AutoCAD SHX comments in the first place.

Yes, we get sent thousands of PDF files from clients that have this issue from Autocad export, like you we cant do anything about this as we cant get the client to change their processes. I was unsure if we could flatten the PDF or if doing that would loose something that was needed in the comments.

Click on Filter symbol>Reviewer>Select the name of the reviewer only. All other comments will be hidden. For eg. it will show 1.All, 2. Autocad SHX text 3. Reviewer name. If reviewer name is selected, SHX text will be hidden

After unlocking a cell, you can click into a cell, change a value. As a deliberate checks and balances, to update the Excel file, you must right-click once again, and select Write Data Links to External Source.

Update: If you found this post helpful, you might also be interested in my other post titled Quickly Link Excel Tables to AutoCAD. You can find it and all of my posts related to Microsoft Excel by clicking the Excel tag below.

Donnie is author of the book and Autodesk Official Press, AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT: No Experience Required, a columnist for AUGIWorld Magazine, Autodesk University speaker, and former member of the AUGI Board of Directors.

Is is possible to update layers in AutoCAD automatically when we change unit type in column B? For example: Unit No. 001 change from Small Shop to Food, and Unit No. 005 change from Hypermarket to Cinema.., and then the layer in AutoCAD updates automatically. The floor plans contains about 300 units and 50 different layers to represent unit type. If this is possible, it would save the amount of time & effort than selecting hatch one by one and change the layer.

I am wanted to link excel data in to autocad drawing in the form of cross section and long section of the canal & river i.e the elevation versus chainages in the x and y axis respevtively by
changing the data in the document file it would have to change
automaticaly in the autocad drawing itself that is the profile change.
but i could not it? can you explain me the required problem through my
e-mail please.

I want to connect the excel data into autocad drawing in cross-sectional shape to draw a cross-sectional and longitudinal whether to send it in autocad 2007 if its application can be sent to me thanks imeal

i am wanted to link excel data in to autocad drawing in the form of cross section of the river or canal i.e the elevation versus chainages in the x and y axis respevtively by changing the data in the document file it would have to change automaticaly in the autocad drawing 2007

I have a fire map which got 700+ devices on it and each time we add/remove a device the whole numbering system gets changed. Therefore I am looking to link the device labels in autocad with excel spreadsheet and update the spreadsheet whenever we add/remove a fire device. I would really appriciate if somebody can give me some tips :)

how to link the CAD drawings names into excel? i.e. if I have series of drawings and want to change its names and the excel has already its names, so whatever I do in Cad, the excel will be updated according to CAD?? Same concept of (xref) in autoCAD.

To do this I made a block with these links, and using a script, inserted the same block into every drawing. All I have to do is open each drawing and change each of the 10 links to match the drawing/sheet which is open. (i am struggling to explain)

I was hoping there would be a way of selecting all links at once and changing all 10 SHEETS to the correct one. (they are all pointing to the first sheet, because they are all the same exploded block).
Believe it or not even changing each one individually, it is still saving me a lot of time but i was hoping it could be done a bit faster.

Donnie, thaks for sharing this post, i found it really useful. I have a problem uploading my changes to the excel table inserted in autocad to the original excel file. I tried to create a field with the area of a pline and I can upload it but when I modify the poliline and the field shows the new area, I click on update to source file and get the message:
1 object(s) found.
1 data link(s) could not be written out.
0 data link(s) written out successfully.
It happens only when the object to which the field is referred is modified after creating the field.

A Second, unrelated question, has anyone scaled a linked table in acad only to need to insert rows into the table and have the new text come in at the original scale when updated? Is there a way to set the table so updates will come in at the proper scale?

I am trying to Data Link a spread sheet that has been filtered and i only want the filtered information to show. But when i import the sheet after filtering, it still shows all information that is on that sheet and not just the filtered information. Is there anyway i can make it show just the filtered information?

Is it possible to do the otherway round?
I already made the table data in AUTOCAD but now I want to transport it to Excel so that in the future I just have to make amendments in Excel. I appreciate the help !

Once you have a CSV file, you can import it into Excel; saving it as an XLS. From there you can use the procedure listed above to create a new linked table in AutoCAD. Doing this last part will dynamically link your AutoCAD table with your Excel table.