DWG file is locked

[Anonymous]

Please could someone try to help me. I have exported a file from Archicad 19 to DWG but the technician has reported that he cannot work on the DWG file because it seems to be locked. The feedback on drawing the query is: “…it’s all one ‘locked’ item. I tried to ‘explode’ it which unblocks a block but it didn’t work”. Any thoughts, please?"

I am not an AutoCAD user so I don't understand the problem. Any ideas please?

[Erwin Edel]

Go into translator and adjust the Save Options.

File Format: AutoCAD 2013 Drawing (unless they are using older version)
Convert Images to: Image's original format
Save Layout into: Paper Space with Cropped View's content
Place Drawings into: Single DXF/DWG file
Saving Floor Plan: Convert complex elements to Blocks
Save Zones as: Stamp and Fill

Check under 'Attributes > Layers > Methods' if you aren't saving everything to one layer.

There are more things you can do with pen conversions, renaming layers, etc etc, but these first steps should give a file they can work with. Your layouts will look relatively like they do in ArchiCAD and the model space has all the stuff that is on layout nicely lined up in one file. I'd recommend sending a PDF along so they know how everything is supposed to look in terms of text size, fills used to cover up things etc


If they still can't work with it, I'm afraid you've struck AutoCAD ignorance gold. Which happens especially the further down the line you go with contractors and subcontractors, in my experience. As we say around our office, they're not excactly Rocket Surgeons there...

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much. Really detailed reply.