Opening Drawings

You can open an existing drawing by selecting the Open command from the File menu or by typing open at the command line. If you open a drawing that is associated with an existing project, then the drawing is linked automatically to that project. If you open a drawing that is not associated with a project, then you must select a project or create a new project for the drawing to work with AutoCAD Land Desktop commands.

Opening Drawings in Other Types of AutoCAD

Some of the objects, such as points, contours, and labels, that are created in AutoCAD Land Desktop are called ARX objects. ARX objects cannot be modified if the drawing is opened in another AutoCAD program, such as regular AutoCAD or AutoCAD Mechanical Desktop. To share an AutoCAD Land Desktop drawing with someone using another AutoCAD program, it is recommended that the person use Object Enabler from the AutoCAD Land Desktop product media or the Autodesk website. There are three other options to share AutoCAD Land Desktop drawings in another AutoCAD program:

Use proxy graphics. Use the Export to AutoCAD command on the File menu. Explode custom objects to polylines by using the EXPLODE command.

Proxy Graphics
Proxy graphics, which represent the custom objects, are used to indicate the locations of custom objects in the drawing.

Note If you share a drawing with another person who uses proxy graphics,
then make sure when you save the drawing that the PROXYGRAPHICS variable is set to 1.

Working with Drawings

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When an AutoCAD Land Desktop drawing is opened in another AutoCAD program, the Proxy Information dialog box is displayed. The Proxy Information dialog box identifies the missing application and the number of proxy objects in the drawing. The dialog box also contains three options:

Do not show proxy graphics: Does not display proxy graphics. Show proxy graphics: Replaces custom ARX objects as proxy graphics. Show proxy bounding box: Displays a box surrounding custom ARX objects called a bounding box.

Exiting AutoCAD Land Desktop

You can exit the AutoCAD Land Desktop program by using the following methods:

From the File menu, choose Exit. Type exit or quit. Click the close box in the upper-right corner of the AutoCAD Land Desktop window.

Key Concepts

When you quit a drawing, you are prompted to save any changes that you have made but not yet saved. To allow multi-user read/write access to the point database and the alignment database, the point and alignment information is written directly to the databases, so they never need to be saved.

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Chapter 2

Getting Started with AutoCAD Land Desktop