Wednesday

Pack & send your projects: e-Transmit

This topic is prepared by AutoCAD 2008

You bring the project that you prepared by Autocad to the Copy Center (also known as traditional name: Blueprinter and new cool name: Digital Press Center). The technician opens your project and encounters several Autocad alerts like ‘….. Font Not Found and Replaced by ……’, ‘…… External Reference Not Found’, ‘….. External Image Not Found’, ‘…. Plot Style Not Found’ etc.. As a result, the drawing you formed carefully is not the same drawing when it is being plotted.

I am pretty sure that most of you have experienced this problem. Traditional Autocad users like us solve this problem by bringing the external files, fonts and plot configurations we used. It can done by same method at present. Yet, it is not the subject of our article. The ‘ETRANSMIT’ command has been found to resolve this problem since Autocad version 2000. In this article, The ‘ETRANSMIT’ command in Autocad 2008 is being processed.

Fig.1

The pop-up window can be seen in Figure.1 when the command is typed. As it is said, the command creates a single package including the main drawing and all other files attached to it. Thus, there is a part in the left for you to note the files to be packed. The files can be seen in table or list format. More files can be added to the package by ‘Add File …’ button if you wish. In the right, there are transmittal settings button. There is a default setting called ‘Standard’ in the transmittal settings area yet, you can prepare your own settings. To do this, we have to enter the Transmittal Settings Control Window by just clicking the ‘Transmittal Setups..’ button. (Figure.2)

Fig.2

You can form new settings or arrange the default one via this window. As usual, I advise you to form a new setting instead of chancing the default one. The setting options can be seen in Figure.3.

Fig.3

Transmittal package type : The package options can be set here. There are three options; folder (set of files), zip (zip type of file) and self-extracting executable file (exe type of file). It is more convenient to create a exe file, but don’t forget these type of files can be filtered by virus programmes.

File format: Version 2000, 2004 and 2007 formats can be chosen. It is more convenient to send the files to your friends using older versions of Autocad. If you choose an old version, it will be better to add something to your setting name to remember.

Maintain Visual Fidelity for Annotative Objects: Ticking this option keeps the drawing scale of objects but can be confusing since it is added to the settings of your friend you have sent.

Transmittal file folder: The save path of the package can be browsed here. More than one files will be created in the path if the file format is set as folder.

In the Transmittal Options part, we can decide the whole details about the plot. Let us examine our options one by one:

Use Organized Folder Structure: Copy the folder configuration of plot files. The root folder containing the drawing is the top folder.

Pay attention about these points:

• The sub-folders keep unchanged. The sub-folders other than the source file are moved to root folder that the package will be created. These are the folders containing material textures, external references (xref) etc.. These folders will be copied in the root folder of the package with the same configuration if they are not in the sub-folders of the drawing file.
• The folders will be copied relatively instead of the whole path in your computer. That means, the folder ‘G:\Projects\EBM\v3.0\Dwg\Sample\ ‘ is copied as ‘ ..\*.* ‘ in the package. The same rule is also valid for the folders containing the external files of the drawing.
• The ‘ Fonts ‘ folder is created if necessary.
• The ‘ PlotCfgs ‘ folder is created if necessary.
• The ‘ SheetSets ‘ folder is created if necessary. DST file is found in the main folder.

If the file is being packed to a web path this option is not vaild.

Source Root Folder: It is the path of the root file that is used for calculating where is the necessary files relatively found for your drawing in your computer. In this example it refers to ‘ G:\Projects\EBM\v3.0\Dwg\Sample\‘ folder.

Place All Files in One Folder: All files will be copied into a single folder (to where it is browsed earlier) if this option is selected. This is mostly the best choice. Because Autocad firstly seeks for the external references in the drawing folder when a drawing is opened. However, pay attention to the folder patterns to be regular if the drawings frequently are sent between the departments of a company.

Keep Files and Folders As Is: This option keeps the folder structure as it is when the package is opened. As it is mentioned above if there is a certain order in the company, this option can be used.

Include Fonts: This option adds the TTF and SHX types of font files into the package. The copy center has to have the licence for the fonts you used since True Type Fonts may require special licence.

Include Textures from Materials: This option adds the JPG, TIFF and TGA etc.. type of files used for material assignments into the package.

Include Files from Data Links: If the data links in the drawing reference external files, these files are added to the package.

Include Photometric Web Files: If used, photometric light definitions (i-drop) used via web are also added to the package.

Send E-mail with Transmittal: This option opens the e-mail programme installed in the computer after creating the package, and thus it is ready to send.

Set Default Plotter to ‘None’: This options sets the default plotter option to none in case the copy center does not have the plotter that was assigned in the drawing.

Bind External References: This option attaches the external references (XREF) to the drawing.

Prompt for Password: This option sets a password to the package so you keep safe the package for any possible corruption.

Include Drawing Set Data and Files: This options adds the DST, DWG (label drawing) and DWT (template drawing) type of files to the package.

It is sufficient to do these settings just once. However for differenet locations you will possibly send it is more convenient to create different settings for each of them.

Lastly, I’d like to remind that the file list to be packed is found in the ‘Files Table‘ part. (Figure.4)

Fig.4

Regards

Related Topics:

• Taking JPEG printouts

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