ASCENT Blog

Sharing Drawings in the Cloud in AutoCAD® 2018

By Renu Muthoo

The Autodesk® 360 (A360) software is the direct connection to the Autodesk Cloud environment, which enables teams to work together and share information, and provides knowledge on how to display and edit a drawing file. Using A360, you can easily and conveniently share drawings with other team members. The cloud collaboration topic is discussed in detail in Chapter 10: Cloud Collaboration and 2D Automation in the AutoCAD 2018: Advanced - Mixed Units student guide.

Sharing Drawings:

Sharing drawings with other team members in A360 is as easy as saving the drawing file and selecting A360 as the storage location in the Save in drop-down list. Additionally, you can click  (Share Document) in the A360 tab>Share panel. You can also open files from the Cloud and attach files located in the Cloud using the Look in drop-down list and selecting the A360 option.

   

Upload Drawings:

After signing in to A360, in the A360 tab>Online Files panel, click  (Open A360 Drive) to open the A360 browser. The browser displays a list of all available folders.

• Navigate into the folders to locate files as required.
• To upload one or more files at a time, click Upload in the A360 browser.

      

Public sharing enables anyone that has the link to access the drawing. The link only enables you to display or download the drawing without giving them permission to make any changes.

Private sharing enables you to share drawings with other users with whom you are actively working on projects. This enables them to display, download, and edit any drawings to which you provide access.

The links are created in the Share dialog box.

   

When you hover over a drawing name, various icons display that enable you to work with the file. These icons are described  below.

  - Share: Enables you to share a link with other users so that they can access the file in A360.

 - Download: Enables you to download the file for local viewing and editing.

 - Expand: Expands to display a menu with options that enable you to move, copy, rename, upload a new version, or delete the file.

           

 Share Design View:

To publish views of drawings to the cloud while protecting your drawing files, on the A360 tab>Share panel, click  (Share Design View). This option enables stakeholders to view the design without having to log in to A360 or have the AutoCAD software installed on their computers.

I hope that you will find the above feature useful for sharing your drawing with other team members. As previously mentioned, I have provided a fully detailed section on Sharing Designs in the Cloud collaboration along with a hands on practice in Chapter 10: Cloud Collaboration and 2D Automation in the AutoCAD 2018: Advanced - Mixed Units student guide.

Path Type Enhancements in External References in AutoCAD 2018

Path Type:

The Path Type Controls how the AutoCAD software searches for the reference file to load it. By default, the Path type is set to Relative Path. It starts from the folder of the host drawing.

Full path uses the entire path. With No path, the AutoCAD software searches in the current folder of the host drawing, and in the project paths, support paths, and Start-in folder.

 

What's New in 2018:
When a drawing has an external reference that has been moved and cannot be found, the shortcut menu offers you options to find the file, as shown in Figure 31–9. The Select New Path option enables you to fix the missing path by selecting the file from the new location. Once the reference file’s new location has been selected, the software prompts you to use the new path for the other missing references or leave the rest of the paths as is. The Find and Replace option opens the Find and Replace dialog box, which enables you to find the current path and replace all of its instances with the new path, all at once.

Figure 31-9

 

Enhanced in 2018:
The shortcut menu also provides you with the option of changing the path type by selecting Change Path Type. If the path type option of the selected reference file is grayed out and cannot be selected, it indicates that it is the one currently used. Figure 31–10 shows an example of the referenced file using the Relative Path type, which is grayed out to indicate that the path type is currently used.

Figure 31-10

 

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This content is taken from the ASCENT training guide: AutoCAD/AutoCAD LT 2018 Fundamentals

Available in Mixed Units and Metric Units of Measurement.

Using the Convert Text to Mtext Tool in AutoCAD 2018

In the Express Tools tab>Text panel, use the Convert to Mtext tool (shown in Figure B–8) to combine multiple individual text objects to create one multi-line text object.

 

Figure B–8

 

• When you start this command, you can select the individual single line text objects and then press <Enter>. In the Command Line, it displays the number of Text line objects that were converted to a single multiline object, as shown in Figure B–9.
  
  

Figure B–9

 

• Before selecting the individual text lines, you can select the Settings option (<Down Arrow>) which opens the Text to MText Settings dialog box, as shown in Figure B–10. You can use the default Sort top-down setting, which sorts the collinear multiple text lines as they are on the same line with a space between them.

 

Figure B–10

 

• If you clear the Combine into a single Mtext object option, the selected multiple single line text objects are converted to individual multi-line text objects, without combining them into one object.
• The Force uniform line spacing option keeps the existing line spacing between the individual text lines.

 

This tool can be found in the 2018 ASCENT training guide: AutoCAD/AutoCAD LT 2018: Fundamentals.

 

What are the different types of worksets in Revit?

User-created worksets are the main ones you work in as you add and modify elements in a project. There are also three other types of worksets you can use: View, Family, and Project Standards.

 

• View Worksets
  View worksets (shown below) are automatically created for each view that is in place when the workset is first created. When you make a change to a view (such as turning elements on or off), or create a new view, you do not need to have permission unless someone else has checked out the view by making it editable.

  

  In the Show area, you can select the type of Worksets that you want to view.

  If a View workset is made editable and a different user tries to make a modification to the view, the change is only temporary, as shown in the warnin below. The view workset must be released by the owner for anyone to make a change.

  

   

   
• Family Worksets
  Family worksets, as shown in below, control the status of each family in the project. To make a change to a family (such as a door style or furniture component), similar to view worksets, you can make this change on-the-fly as long as someone else has not checked out the family.

  
  If you need to check out a family so no one else can modify it, you can change the editable status in the Worksets dialog box or in the Project Browser. Expand the Families branch, right-click on the Family name, and select Make Workset Editable, as shown in here.

  

  A family workset made editable cannot be changed by any other user. The owner must release it and synchronize it with the central file before anyone else can modify it.

• Project Standards Worksets
  Project Standards worksets (shown below) hold information such as the materials, line styles, wall types, text types, and any other settings. These should only be modified by a project leader or a delegated person to help maintain these standards.

  

  You can create new family types for floors, roofs, and walls using Type Properties without making them editable. Once they have been saved to the central file, they need to be made editable to modify them again.

  Relinquishing ownership of any Project Standard workset you are not working on is especially important so that others can have access to it.

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This information is taken from the ASCENT training guide: Autodesk Revit 2017 Collaboration Tools