Clean your Files or your Grounded!!

When I receive files form a client, vendor, or coworker, I often ask why? Why what? Why did they leave one million extra and unused layers in the file? Why are there unused blocks in the file? WHY? WHY? WHY? Oh the humanity!!!

I ask CAD users around the office to take a few steps when they finish working in a file in order to make things easier for others when they have to come behind us and fix what we did wrong. Here are the steps:

1. Audit. Run the Audit command to fix many errors that could cause AutoCAD to crash. Runt the Audit command. When prompted to "Fix any errors detected", type in "Y" for yes. If errors are detected, a prompt will appear asking if they are to be deleted. Type in "Y" for yes, as this is why we are doing this.

2. Purge. When using the purge command, select the "Confirm Each Item to be Purged" box and the "Purge nested items" boxes. This will allow the user to eliminate all purgeable items in the file with one click. If unused items might be needed in the future, then select the purgeable items one at a time. It can be cumbersome, but saves items that you might want.

3. Zoom in or out in the file so that the drawing border fills the screen. Then save. This will allow for any thumbnails of the drawing to clearly indicate the contents of the file.

These steps will keep files clean, neat, and tidy.