Virtual Drafter
Frequently Asked Questions
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General Questions
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I'm concerned about loading my AutoCAD drawing into Vdraft.
This is a valid concern as many CAD programs claim to read and write AutoCAD drawing
files when in fact they may lose a significant amount of your drawing data due to
translating it into their own drawing format. The types of data they may lose
include:
- Extended entity data
- Externally referenced drawings (Xrefs)
- Paperspace and all modelspace ports within paperspace
- The values of all header variables
- The names of layers
- Entity handles
- Polyline idiosyncrasies (width, thickness, polyarcs, polymeshes, polyfaces, splines, etc)
Vdraft does NOT translate your AutoCAD drawing data and hence keeps ALL of the
drawing information intact. Nothing is lost. All your AutoCAD drawing data is
maintained by Vdraft. This makes it completely safe for you to load your AutoCAD
drawing files into Vdraft and to save them again. As extra insurance, Vdraft creates
a backup file with the file extension .VBK instead of .BAK so that your AutoCAD
backup file also remains intact.
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Can I load my DXF files into Vdraft?
Yes. In fact Vdraft works so transparently with DXF files that you'll think you're
working with a DWG file. Vdraft does not treat a DXF file differently from a DWG
file because a DXF file can contain all the same information as a DWG file. Creating
a DWG file from your DXF file or visa versa is as easy as changing the file extension
when you save the drawing. And unlike AutoCAD, you do not have to DXFIN your DXF
file.
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Can I type AutoCAD commands into Vdraft?
Yes. As you type you will see the command appear on the status bar. You can even
use the space bar to execute a command just as you would in AutoCAD.
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Do I have to run two copies of Vdraft in order to copy and paste between drawings?
No. Unlike AutoCAD you can load as many drawings as needed into Vdraft to do your
work. To copy data to another drawing is as simple as selecting the data, copying it
(via Ctrl-C), selecting the other drawing (via Ctrl-F6) and pasting it (via Ctrl-V).
As a side note you may be interested in knowing that you can also copy and paste
between Vdraft and AutoCAD.
Technical Support Questions for v1.5 and earlier
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When I cut-and-paste between drawings, how do I get the pasted objects to
maintain their relative positions?
By default Vdraft uses the center of the objects to be pasted as the base point
around which those objects will appear. By using the Clipboard tab on the
Preferences dialog you can change the base point for inserted objects to be
(0,0). Now whenever objects are pasted they are pasted relative to the
(0,0) base point of the drawing.
If instead you need to paste objects by a specified base point, then you
need to create a block of the selected objects via the Create Block
item on the Block menu. Once that is done you can use the
Output tab of the Block/Xref Manager dialog with the
Copy Block to Clipboard option checked to copy the newly created
block to the clipboard.
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How do I set middle justified text as the default when creating text?
Currently you can't. However if there is middle justified text already in your
drawing (the Text Properties dialog can be used to change a text entity's
justification), select that text first, now when you create new text it will
take on all the properties of the selected text as well as appear on the next line
below the selected text. While creating the text you can reposition it as needed
via the mouse right-click context sensitive popup menu.
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When I draw a dimension its text does not appear were it should according to the
current dimension style.
When creating a dimension, the position of the text doesn't always use the dimension style
settings. If the text isn't positioned correctly, you can use the right-button context
sensitive popup menu and
choose Text Position, this must be done after picking all the points of the
dimension extension lines but before selecting Done to complete the dimension.
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The Zoom Window box looks different from AutoCAD's.
Vdraft's zoom window box uses the same aspect ratio as that of the drawing window,
showing you precisely what will be displayed after zooming. While at first glance
this may seem inflexible, it actually works the same as in AutoCAD but gives you more
information since AutoCAD actually displays more than just the window you choose.
As a side note, before choosing the second point for the zoom window box you can
press and hold the left mouse button to change the position of the box without
changing its size.
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How do I uninstall Vdraft?
Under Windows NT 3.51 use the unInstall Vdraft program icon in the Virtual
Drafter group of Program Manager.
Under Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 95 use the taskbar Start Settings menu to
start Control Panel and then double-click on Add/Remove Programs. Now
find and highlight Virtual Drafter in the list of installed applications.
Clicking on Add/Remove will now prompt you to remove the selected application.
The Add/Remove Programs is the recommended way to remove all applications
under Windows 95 and NT 4.0 systems. Do not attempt to use the UNINST.EXE
program on the Vdraft 30-Day Trial CD ROM.
Technical Support Questions for v1.01 and earlier
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The Open dialog does not display or open my drawing files.
Vdraft can not display or open drawing files from AutoCAD R13 or R14.
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I just installed and ran Vdraft v1.01 and now
- 1) all the icons for my drawing files are changed.
- 2) double-clicking on a drawing icon starts Vdraft instead of AutoCAD.
When Vdraft is run it associates the .DWG and .DXF extensions with Vdraft. This
causes Windows to display one of Vdraft's icons for your drawing files. It also
means that Windows will start Vdraft when double-clicking on the icon of a drawing
file.
Removing or uninstalling Vdraft will not change your drawing file icons into
AutoCAD icons. To do this you must either download a program
to change the Vdraft Registry settings or if you are familiar with the
Registry Editor program you can make the following changes manually.
1) From the Taskbar Start menu pick the Run... menu item (or from
Program Manager pick Run... off the File menu). In the
Run dialog box type the command RegEdit (for Windows 95 or
RegEdt32 for Windows NT) and click OK.
2) Locate the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT window within the Registry Editor program
and click on it to make it the active window. In the left-hand pane of this window
click on the .DWG item. You should now see:
- Vdraft.DWG.Drawing.1.0
in the right-hand pane of the window. While the .DWG item is highlighted press the
Del key to delete this item from the registry. You may do the same for the .DXF item.
3) Now locate the HKEY_CURRENT_USER window and make it the active window. In the
left-hand pane double-click on the SOFTWARE item. This opens a sub-tree of items
within which you'll find SOFTSOURCE, under which is VIRTUAL DRAFTER 1.0 and finally
SETTINGS such that the whole tree appears as:
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SoftSource\Virtual Drafter 1.0\Settings
The right-hand window pane should now display numerous Vdraft settings, one of which
should appear as follows:
- SetDwgDxfExtensionsOnStartup
Double-click on this setting and in the dialog box that appears change the Data
value from 1 to 0 and click OK. This now disables Vdraft
from changing the .DWG item everytime it is run.
Now you must associate the .DWG extension with AutoCAD R12 or R13. To do this
double-click on a .DWG file and select AutoCAD to be the association. If you are
running Windows NT 3.51 you need to use File Manager to do the association.
After this, double-clicking on a drawing file should start AutoCAD. Also, by
disabling the Vdraft setting SetDwgDxfExtensionsOnStartup you can now run
Vdraft without losing your AutoCAD association to .DWG files.
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Why can't I drag multiple files and drop them onto the Vdraft icon?
This occurs under Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 (but not NT 3.51) for Vdraft
version 1.0 and 1.01. This has been corrected in the current
version of Vdraft. Meanwhile drop only one file at a time onto the Vdraft icon or
drop multiple files directly onto the Vdraft window.
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The Open dialog does not list the names of my drawings.
This occurs with Vdraft v1.01 under Windows NT when the files are compressed.
If you have the Vdraft 30-Day Trial Version you can get an
update from our Product Updates page.
Otherwise you must contact softtech@softsource.com
to receive an update.
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Object snap to text is left justified even though the text is middle justified.
Vdraft v1.5 has fixed this problem. It now snaps to the text's justification point.
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I can't get Continuous or Baseline dimensions to work.
You must first select the dimension you wish to continue or use as a baseline, then
select the Continuous or Baseline command.
Vdraft v1.5 allows you to choose either the dimension or the action first.
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When starting a new drawing a dialog tells me I'm not licensed to use it.
This is a Visual Basic message that says
"You do not have an appropriate license to use this functionality."
This message can appear when
running any Visual Basic application add-on for Vdraft when certain OCX files
required by these VB applications are not correctly installed on your system. This
problem may occur if these OCXs are already on your computer but are not registered
correctly.
To correct this problem you need to uninstall Vdraft (via the Add/Remove Programs
in Control Panel for Win95 and WinNT 4.0) and then delete the following
files from your \Windows\System or \WinNT\System32 (Win95 and WinNT respectively):
- COMCTL32.OCX, COMDLG32.OCX and TABCTL32.OCX
When you reinstall Vdraft, it will install these OCXs and register them.
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I can't add a new text style (or layer or linetype) to my DXF file.
Some DXF files may not define a text style (or layer or linetype) table. If this is
the case then Vdraft will be unable to add new entries to that table. As a work
around for this problem use the Save As command to save the DXF file as a DWG
file. Now close the drawing and then open it again as the DWG file. This process
of saving the DXF file will add default entries for the missing tables. If you wish
you may now save the DWG file as a DXF file.
The Main Feature of Vdraft 2.0
- Support for AutoCAD Release 2000 (R15) drawings
Return to Vdraft's Home Page
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