topic Re: External drawing revert convertion in Project data & BIM

External drawing revert convertion

jcfnav — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 09:21:46 GMT

Hi,

I have placed a dwg drawing File --> External Content --> Place External Drawing, a popup saying "The source DWG/DXF drawing contains special Region Elements, Would you like to convert there elements?" unintentionally I clicked on Don't Convert and that was a big mistake because now I don't know how to tell that reference drawing to Convert.

Is there a way to revert that action?

Operating system used: Windows 11

Re: External drawing revert convertion

Barry Kelly — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 01:11:32 GMT

Not something I have ever come across, but I would assume you might have to place the drawing again?

Once a drawing is placed, there is not much that you can do with it other than explode it.

Barry.

Re: External drawing revert convertion

jcfnav — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 05:43:00 GMT

Yes I have tried placing it again and even checking if in the drawing manager the file is gone. When I try to place it again after deletion, the popup info is not shown anymore, it seems like AC remembers that choice from before for that file name and to my knowledge that shouldn't happen.

We need to keep the file referenced, that's why we cannot explode it.

Re: External drawing revert convertion

Laszlo Nagy — Sun, 03 Aug 2025 15:49:25 GMT

Can you try to rename the DWG file and use the Drawing tool again to place the replaced name file? Or make a copy and try tp place that? That way, Archicad may consider it a different file and it will again offer you that option.

Re: External drawing revert convertion

jcfnav — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 05:46:42 GMT

Thanks, that's what I proposed, but the is a team project so it is not wise to start renaming files if other members have access to it. I think the software should work for us and not the other way around.

If there is a preference that says never ask again or ask every time a file is placed is more than enough.

Re: External drawing revert convertion

Laszlo Nagy — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 18:14:39 GMT

Yes, you are right, I was just trying to suggest a workaround for the current situation.

I have one more idea: This is just a guess, but maybe this setting is stored in some kind of preference file, and this is why it "sticks".

So, I was wondering what would happen if you quit Archicad and started deleting some preference files like:

"C:\Users\<UserProfile>\AppData\Roaming\Graphisoft\Archicad 28.0.0 INT R1\Archicad Basic.prf"

I wonder if this behavior is stored in this preference file and deleting it would restore the intended behavior.