LT On-line: Lesson 20

Sending Drawing Files Revisited: Don't retransmit, eTransmit

Page 1: ETRANSMIT Tool

Way back in lesson 4, "Send Drawing Files: Pack 'n Go the LT Way,"I described a long-winded way of "packaging" your drawing files for sending to other people. The main issue was figuring out how to include all of the files on which your main drawing files depend—especially attached xrefs, custom font files, and attached raster image files—so that the recipient of your drawings didn't end up with missing pieces or wrong fonts.

AutoCAD LT (along with AutoCAD) now includes ETRANSMIT, a utility that automatically locates all of the dependent files and copies them to a separate folder or creates a ZIP file out of them. The ETRANSMIT utility greatly simplifies the job of gathering all of the files for sending to others.

The procedure described here works with AutoCAD and LT 2002 and 2000i. Earlier versions of AutoCAD and LT didn't include the ETRANSMIT command. Earlier versions of the Bonus and Express Tools for full AutoCAD included the Pack 'n Go utility, which works in a similar way.

You can use ETRANSMIT to gather up all of the dependent files (xrefs, fonts, and raster images) that the current drawing requires so that you can send the drawing as a complete package to someone else. ETRANSMIT also includes plot style files (CTB or STB files) so that the recipient can plot your drawing with the same lineweights and other plotting effects that you use.

In addition, ETRANSMIT can assemble all of the files into a ZIP or self-extracting EXE file, issue a report on all of the files, and help with posting the files to a Web site.

Sending Drawing Files Revisited: Don't retransmit, eTransmit
  Page 1: ETRANSMIT Tool
  Page 2: Using ETRANSMIT, part 1
  Page 3: Using ETRANSMIT, part 2