Over the many years that AutoCAD has been around -- it’s now eighteen years old -- the way that users open a drawing file has changed dramatically. Originally, AutoCAD presented a "menu" of choices; to open a drawing, you pressed 2 ("Edit an EXISTING drawing") and Enter. AutoCAD prompted you for the name of the drawing, whose filename you had to have memorized because there was no selecting the name from a list, as happens today.

In AutoCAD 2000i, the Open command displays the Select File dialog box, which presents a treasure trove of options:

• Select one or more drawings to open at once.
• Preview the drawing (via a thumbnail representation) before opening it.
• Open DWG, DXF, and DWT (template) files.
• Sort the list of filenames by name, date, and size.
• View drawings recently opened (History), most often used (Favorites)
• Open a drawing with read-write or read-only status.
• Load all or a portion of the drawing.
• Access drawings on your computer, any other computer located on your company network, or from any accessible location on the Internet (FTP).
• Search for a drawing anywhere on your computer (Find), or in specific locations (Locate).
• Manipulate files and folders, such as deleting or renaming files, and creating new folders.
• Send to drawing as an email message, or to a removeable drive.
• Search the Internet for information.
• Resize the dialog box.
• Access Autodesk-financed Web sites Buzzsaw.com and RedSpark.com
• Create a Web page of the selected drawing (if Microsoft Web Publishing Wizard is installed on your computer).

Tip: For a sense of nostalgia, use the undocumented FileOpen command to open a file via the command line. AutoCAD prompts you:

Enter name of drawing to open <.>:

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Command: Open

Purpose: Opens drawings from a variety of locations; provides some ability to manage files.

Notes: Requires the drawing be first saved.

Aliases: OpenUrl

Shortcut: Alt+FO

Menu bar: File | Open

Tablet menu: T25

Status bar: none

Toolbar: Standard

Related commands:

FileOpen Opens drawings without a dialog box; useful for scripts and macros.

PartialLoad Loads additional portions of a partially-loaded drawing.

3DSin Opens 3D Studio drawings.

AcisIn Opens an ACIS-format drawing.

Insert Inserts a drawing into the current drawing.

XAttach Opens an externally-referenced drawing.

Raster Inserts a raster (bitmap) image.

DxbIn Opens a DXB (drawing exchange binary) file.

DxfIn Opens a DXF (drawing interchange format) file.

WmfIn Opens a WMF (Windows meta format) file

RmLin Opens an RML (redline markup langage) file created by Volo View.

Related system variables:

FullOpen Indicates whether the drawing is fully or partially opened.

ProxyShow Determines how proxy objects are displayed after the drawing is opened.

Example command usage:

by Ralph Grabowski

In this tutorial, you take a tour of the Select File dialog box’s user interface to learn your way around. It seems that with every release of AutoCAD, this file dialog box becomes more complex as programmers from Microsoft and Autodesk add ever more features.

1. Start AutoCAD 2000i or AutoCAD LT 2001.

2. When AutoCAD Today window or the Startup dialog box appear, click Cancel.

3. Open the Select File dialog box by one of the following methods:

* At the ‘Command:’ prompt, enter the command name:

Command: open

* From the menu bar, select File | Open.

* From the standard toolbar, click the Open button.

Notice the Select File dialog box.

3. The Select File dialog box has five sections. Going counterclockwise:

The Files List: lists the names of files and folders.

The Toolbar: useful tools for manipulating files and folders.

Standard Folders Sidebar: shortcuts to folders and Web locations.

File Spec: name and type of file to be opened.

Preview: a thumbnail-size image of the drawing.

4. To open a drawing, select its name from the file list. Notice that its name also appears in the File name field. Click Open.

Tip: As a shortcut, you can double-click the filename. This is equivalent to selecting the filename, then clicking the Open button.

5. When you select a drawing in the Files List, notice that AutoCAD displays a preview image. The image is kind of crude, but provides sufficient detail to distinguish between drawings. The preview image, also called a "thumbnail," is generated automatically by AutoCAD each time you save the drawing. That means the thumbnail (1) is updated automatically to reflect the latest editing changes; and (2) shows the last view when the drawing was saved.

Tip: If you see no preview image, this could be due to a couple of reasons. The RasterPreview system variable has been turned off (set to 0); turn it on by changing the value to 1:

Command: rasterpreview

The other possibility is that the DWG and DXF files were created by programs that don’t add the preview image to the file.

5. By default, the dialog box displays the names of DWG (AutoCAD drawing) files. It allows you to open two other kinds of files:

To select another filetype, click the Files of type list. When you select DWT, notice that the dialog box automatically switches to the Template folder.

6. There is more than one way to open a file. Click the down-arrow next to the Open button. Notice the menu that appears:

Open: Loads all of the drawing; you can edit the drawing, and save the changes.

Open Read-Only: Loads all of the drawing, but you cannot save editing changes.

Partial Open: Loads parts of the drawing, based on layer and view names.

Partial Open Read-Only: Loads parts of the drawing, but you cannot save editing changes.

7. When you select one of the two Read-Only options, AutoCAD displays the "Read Only" message on the title bar. In addition, if you attempt to save the drawing, a warning dialog box is displayed.

8. When you select the Partial Open option, AutoCAD displays the Partial Open dialog box. Select a view from the lefthand column and the layers to be opened in the righthand column. When done, click Open.

9. The final option in the File Spec section is the Select Initial View checkbox:

Off: When the drawing is opened, AutoCAD displays the same view as when the drawing was last saved (the default setting).

On: Before the drawing is opened, AutoCAD displays the Select Initial View dialog box, which lets you select a named view. If no views have been saved, then the only option is *Last View*.

10. One last tip for this tutorial: Yet another feature new to file dialog boxes is the ability to make them larger. When you first see the dialog box, it is at its smallest size. With the cursor, grab an edge of the dialog box, and stretch the dialog box larger, then smaller. Notice that this allows you to see more filenames at a time.

This concludes the beginner tutorial. If you wish, you can close the drawing and exit AutoCAD. In the Advanced Tutorial, you learn how to use the other sections of the Select File dialog box.

by Ralph Grabowski

In the beginner tutorial, you took a tour of the Select File dialog box’s user interface. You learned about the Files List, the Preview image, and the File Spec area. In this tutorial, you learn more about the Files List, as well as the Standard Folders Sidebar, and the Toolbar. (You do not need to complete the Beginner Tutorial before starting this tutorial.)

1. If necessary, start AutoCAD 2000i or AutoCAD LT 2001. When the AutoCAD Today window or the Startup dialog box appears, click Cancel. Open the Select File dialog box: from the menu bar, select File | Open. Notice the Select File dialog box.

Tip: Press function key F5 to update the Files List. You may need to do this when files appear to be missing or incorrectly named.

2. In the Files List area of the dialog box, right-click on a filename. Notice that a shortcut menu appears.

Select: It is in boldface. This means it is the default action when you double-click the filename.

Launch AutoCAD: Starts a second copy of AutoCAD with the selected drawing.

Add to ZIP: This item (and others) appear here when you install utilities; this one was added by the WinZIP program, which compresses files into a ZIP file.

Send To: Sends a copy of the file to a variety of destinations, such as removable drive or your email software.

Cut: Copies the drawing to the Clipboard, then deletes it; see Copy.

Copy: Copies the drawing to the Windows Clipboard so that it can be pasted into a document.

Create Shortcut: Creates a shortcut link to the drawing file.

Delete: Erases the file.

Rename: Changes the name of the file.

Properties: Displays properties of the file, equivalent to the data displayed by the DwgProps command.

Tip: You can open more than one drawing at a time. Hold down the Ctrl key, then select as many files as you wish. Click Open. Notice that AutoCAD opens each drawing in its own window.

3. This is the most obvious change to the dialog box’s user interface from earlier versions of AutoCAD: a vertical list of what looks like folders. Each of them provides direct access to a location on your computer or the Internet. From top to bottom, these are:

History: Displays a list of the most-recently opened drawings. Desktop: Displays the files and folders found on the Windows "desktop." My Documents: Displays the files stored in your computer’s My Documents folder. Favorites: Displays the files stored in the \Windows\Favorites folder; you can add selected files via the Tools | Add to Favorites command. Buzzsaw: Connects you to the www.buzzsaw.com Web site, after you install their ProjectPoint client software. RedSpark: Connects you to the www.redspark.com Web site, after you install their client software. FTP: Browse FTP (file transfer protocol) sites on the Internet; you can add sites with the Tools | Add/Modify FTP Locations command.

4. Try clicking on one of the folders to see what happens. If your computer is not connected to the Internet, then the three bottom folders will not work.

5. The toolbar at the top of the dialog box contains many commands. From left to right, these are:

• List: Only files names are listed.
• Details: Filename is listed with size, type, and date last modified.
• Preview: Toggles the display of the preview image.

• Find: Displays the Windows Find dialog box that lets you seach for files.
• Locate: Displays files in folders listed by AutoCAD’s search path.
• Add/Modify FTP Locations: Displays the Add/Modify FTP Locations, which allows you to specify the URL, user name, and password for accessing FTP sites.
• Add to Favorites: Adds the selected file(s) and folders to the Favorites list, which allows you to more quickly access frequently-used drawings.

Tip: An "anonymous logon" means you do not need to provide a password.

This concludes the tutorial. Do not save the drawing; and, if you wish, exit AutoCAD.

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