What's the best way to send a drawing to someone so they cannot edit it? I know about PDF but some companies want dwg. Thanks
Rudy
Write Protect
Sep 02, 2010
4 Replies
Locking programs cost $$$. DWG does not have a locking capability. Honestly, locking serves no purpose other than to inconvenience others. Anything that can be printed can be reproduced even if it means manually redrawing from scratch. Best alternate choice is dwf files which are locked as far as original content, but can be marked up.
Actually, there is a way of locking a dwg with a lisp, but i don't have it here. I can post it on Monday, no sooner, sorry.
Thanks. The only thing I could think of and it's a pain is to start a new drawing and bring the one you want locked in as an xref. Then bind it.
I remembered it's name! :-)) And, it's not a lisp, it's a vlx.
Here it is:
formatting link
Once you use it on a drawing (or selection) it converts it in to a minsert block. If i remember correctly (i don't even have ACAD installed at home :-)) ) you can add to it, but you can't do anything to the original (might be mistaken). Hope it helps.
There is a way of exploding those minsert blocks (if you accidentally do it on a original) but how many users know how? :-))
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