Newbie recording macros in AutoCAD

I have an acquaintance (via email and discussion group) who has the
job of translating about 500 AutoCAD drawings from English to another
language (I think German). He is an experienced computer user, but
not with AutoCAD, so the customer sent him a computer with AutoCAD
loaded on it. I don't know what version, but it's probably 2000 or
later (I asked him, but he hasn't answered yet.)

A lot of the text is repetitive, so he's looking into macros to
partially automate the text.

His client will not allow the drawings to be sent to another provider,
nor install any other software on their computer.

Can somebody point to some guidelines on AutoCAD Programming for
Dummies? He basically only needs a way to execute about a few dozen
commands like this one.

replace this text: XXX with this text: YYY.

Thanks.

 

You're going to have to be more specific that that. F1 is a good place to
start.
There are lisp routines to find and replace text, but I don't think a macro
alone is going to do it.

 

in the edit menu there is the find and replace command, use that if its as
repetative as you say.

 

He is using Find and Replace right now. But there are about 500
drawings. A lot of the replacements are the same in each drawing.
There's got to be a better way.

Steven

 

He could write a routine to filter the various types of text, step through
their contents searching for the XXX and replace it with YYY. It'll take a
while if he's new to it, and may not be worth it on a cost basis alone.
However he would then be able to take advantage of other productivity
enhancements because he would know how to write LISPs, and demand more pay.
If he's not up to have him pass it off to a "junior". If he's the
"junior"....tell him that surviving boredom is a prerequisite for his
career.

I suppose he could pay someone to write the routine for him. I always forget
that there are people out there who do that.
--


MichaelB
www.michaelbulatovich.com

 

He's a "junior" using AutoCAD, but he's a very qualified translator.
A CAD operator is usually not expected to do what he does.

I'm certain that if somebody could give us enough LISP to provide a
starting point, we could figure out the rest ourselves.

For example, replace one term of text (for example: Change all
"STEEL" to "STAHL", then between the two of us we could expand that
statement to make about 20 or 30 more substitutions. Then he could
click on that macro to "pre-translate" a lot of each new drawing, and
make all the final translations by hand.

That would certain save time. It took him days to do 50 drawings, so
at that rate it will take weeks to do all 500. It should not take a
day to get such a macro running.

Steven