What's wrong with my AutoCAD file?

AutoCAD used to have a reputation for crashing and corrupting files regularly.  Talk to any long time CAD user and you'll hear plenty of horror stories.

The program has gotten much more reliable, but it is still very complex, and there are a lot of moving parts, so I am often consulted on drawing problems.

There are a lot of tools for investigating what's in a drawing.  One of my favorites is the QSELECT command.

QSELECT provides a console to create a selection based on various criteria.

Certain objects tend to be problematic:

• Points
• Since they don't print, points can be placed anywhere.  They often throw off the drawing extents.
• Blocks
• Blocks are extremely useful, but blocks can also become corrupted.  It is worthwhile to keep track of your blocks and know what blocks are supposed to show up in your drawing.
• Attributes
• Attributes are ALWAYS supposed to be contained in a block.  If you have an attribute outside of a block, it should be deleted.
• Proxy objects
• Proxy objects are created by add-ons to AutoCAD.  They can become corrupted or they may not render properly in a version of AutoCAD that doesn't have the add-on.
• Splines
• Splines are not always rendered properly.
• 3D shapes
• 3D shapes add a lot of extra data to the drawing.  It is an extra burden that can cause a drawing to render slowly.  I prefer to remove them when possible.
• Empty text
• Text and Mtext containers without text inside can increase the size of a drawing with no benefits.  Recently the PURGE command was adjusted to deal with empty text objects.

By using filtering abilities in QSELECT you can find, adjust, and potentially delete individual items that cause drawing issues.


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