Drawing file size problem - too large

Hello to All:

I'm hoping that someone on this newsgroup can help solve a rather
strange problem that I've been having with certain AutoCAD drawing
files that have grown to about three times the size I feel they should
be.

I am a drafter at a geotechnical engineering firm in Oregon and most
of our drawings are very simple. We use AutoCAD 2000i here. My
current project is to go through our small library of stock drawings
with the intention of detailing them somewhat and adding some touches
to make them look a little more finished. I have two nearly identical
drawings with the same amount of hatching etc. and yet one is 307 KB
and the other is 1061KB. I have done everything I can think of to
reduce the size of this drawing including all the suggestions I could
find in the archives of this newsgroup. There are only seven layers,
a very small amount of hatching (no dots), no dimensions, ISAVEPERCENT
is set to 0, DELOBJ is set to 0, and I have purged all unused layers,
dimstyles, textstyles, etc. There are no blocks or xrefs in this
drawing and I have tried WBLOCKing it out to a new drawing with no
success in reducing the file size.

To me, the really strange thing about this is that if I open a brand
new empty drawing its size is 26KB. If I copy over (copy with base
point) even a single object from one of my bloated drawings, such as a
short line segment, the new drawing immediately grows to 986KB. This
tells me that I am bringing over some unseen entities to my new
drawing but I cannot figure out what they might be.

I would rate myself as intermediate-level user of AutoCAD and I'm
hoping that some of the more experienced users may have some ideas
about what's going on here.

Thanks to all who take the time to read and reflect on this posting.
We are experiencing some problems with our email here so I am using my
personal account, which is . Either email or posting
works equally well for me. Thanks again.

Tom J. in Oregon

 

I would investigate the number of "saved layer states" in the file as the
possible culprit.
I think they started with 2000i can have the effects you describe.

 

Michael

Is there a quick way to purge the saved layer states?

We have drawings with hundereds of the damn things in, and when you create a
new layer the other layers dissapear from the display which means you have
to dig around to bring back the correct layer display, which is a total pain

Sorry for the slight thread hijacking but hopefully it's the next question
asked anyway

TIA

Tim

 

TJ
I looked up the DELOBJ after reading your post. Seems to me that if
file size is a problem you'd want to set DELOBJ to 1. Here's what I
found in the Acad help file.

Type: Integer
Saved in: Registry
Initial value: 1
Controls whether objects used to create other objects are retained or
deleted from the drawing database.

0 Objects are retained
1 Objects are deleted

Try creating a new dwg and setting DELOBJ to 1. Then insert an object
from the bloated file and see what happens. You didn't say but I'm
guessing your running 2000i on XP. I've noticed similar "bloating" as
you call it from some of our files also.

Good luck
Rick Elliott

 

Sorry Tim, I have no direct experience with these things, but if you do a
google you should
find a thread here or in alt.cad.autocad a few months back. I recall someone
may have written
a routine to do this.....
Sorry to hear you too don't like the "new feature".

 

That has to do with whether the original objects are deleted when creating
blocks, and in most cases won't have much of an effect on drawing file size.
___

 

I actually posted this over a week ago to Google Group
comp.cad.autocad and for some unknown reason it never appeared in the
group nor did I receive any error messages that it didn't go through.
Anyway, I will try to post again. Sorry if this turns out to be a
duplicate post.
Tom J.
==========
Hello to All:

I'm hoping that someone on this newsgroup can help solve a rather
strange problem that I've been having with certain AutoCAD drawing
files that have grown to about three times the size I feel they should
be.

I am a drafter at a geotechnical engineering firm in Oregon and most
of our drawings are very simple. We use AutoCAD 2000i here. My
current project is to go through our small library of stock drawings
with the intention of detailing them somewhat and adding some touches
to make them look a little more finished. I have two nearly identical
drawings with the same amount of hatching etc. and yet one is 307 KB
and the other is 1061KB. I have done everything I can think of to
reduce the size of this drawing including all the suggestions I could
find in the archives of this newsgroup. There are only seven layers,
a very small amount of hatching (no dots), no dimensions, ISAVEPERCENT
is set to 0, DELOBJ is set to 0, and I have purged all unused layers,
dimstyles, textstyles, etc. There are no blocks or xrefs in this
drawing and I have tried WBLOCKing it out to a new drawing with no
success in reducing the file size.

To me, the really strange thing about this is that if I open a brand
new empty drawing its size is 26KB. If I copy over (copy with base
point) even a single object from one of my bloated drawings, such as a
short line segment, the new drawing immediately grows to 986KB. This
tells me that I am bringing over some unseen entities to my new
drawing but I cannot figure out what they might be.

I would rate myself as intermediate-level user of AutoCAD and I'm
hoping that some of the more experienced users may have some ideas
about what's going on here.

Thanks to all who take the time to read and reflect on this posting.
We are experiencing some problems with our email here so I am using my
personal account, which is . Either email or posting
works equally well for me. Thanks again.

Tom J. in Oregon

 

Delete your named Layer Filters. They carry over even when you copy just a
few items to a new drawing.
___