AutoCAD® 2009 & AutoCAD LT® 2009 All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies®

Chapter 4. Sharing Electronic Files

Drawing files are one of the byproducts of AutoCAD. When you work with AutoCAD you have two choices: to keep a design digital or create a physical hard copy of the drawing. The electronic drawing is much more important than the hard copy of a drawing that can be produced with the PLOT or PUBLISH commands. To efficiently deliver a set of drawings to a client or someone else, drawings should remain digital. This doesn't mean that a hard copy of the drawing file isn't important; it's just that it's a slower way to deliver and communicate changes.

This chapter focuses on delivering a representation of a drawing file in a digital format that can't be modified — well, the original drawing isn't affected anyway. Sharing drawing files can be challenging; others want your drawing files, but they may not be able to view or use them with their software application of choice. AutoCAD offers a few solutions to help you share drawing files with people who don't own a CAD program or people who do own a CAD program but use something other than AutoCAD.

AutoCAD also offers a variety of options for accessing FTP sites, project management sites developed by Autodesk to work with their products such as Buzzsaw and Streamline, and publishing drawing files to Web sites.

Sharing Drawings with Non-AutoCAD-based Products

When you work with CAD, you often need to share your drawing files with others. However, not everyone's CAD application is the same. For this reason, CAD ...