[trying to import a hatch, getting a message saying i can't]

hi, i'm trying to import a hatch

i click on the little arrow in the upper right corner of the resource browser, open the hatch and then it says:

"the following files were saved using an older version of Vectorworks and therefore could not be added to the list of favorites"

can you help me out? you can't open stuff that was saved in a previous version of vectorworks?!

[minimum unit length doesn't seem to work]

hi!

the smallest unit i can draw is 1/8th of an inch. i want to draw smaller. so i went into 'units' and changed my 'rounding position' to 1/32, but it's not changing anything. is there another place where i can specify the minimum unit size i want?

thanks!

[create a viewport of a selected area]

thank you very very much!!

[certain elements on my design layer won't move!]

even if i copy and paste them to a new design layer, they still won't budge!

[certain elements on my design layer won't move!]

hi!

a few polygons on my design layer refuse to be moved. everything else moved, they won't. they aren't locked. any suggestions?

thanks again!

[create a viewport of a selected area]

dworks - could you tell me where in the preferences this is? i don't see it.

if they don't have this option, this is another huge flaw in this program

[draw a line perpendicular to another line]

duplicate and rotate takes more time, though. i realize it's only a few extra mouse clicks but they add up and i shouldn't have to it. i'll see if i can get the snaps to work, thanks for the advice.

[draw a line perpendicular to another line]

hi!

i'd say 50/50 i'm presented with an option to draw a line that's perpendicular to another line. i usually have all the snaps turned on. any tips on how i can do this easily and 100% of the time?

[create a viewport of a selected area]

hi benson!

i think maybe i clicked the 'don't ask me this again' box. how do i undo that?!

[create a viewport of a selected area]

hi!

yes, the rectangle is selected when i click 'create viewport', but i still don't get an option to create a viewport using a crop. all that happens is when i click 'create viewport' i get my entire drawing on a sheet, just with the rectangle over part of it.

however your second suggestion worked. if i doubleclick on a viewport, select 'crop' and a 2D object it crops the viewport. this will work for now, although i'd like to know how to do it the other way!

thanks!

[create a viewport of a selected area]

hi!

thank you for this - i created a rectangle over the area i wanted to show, clicked 'create viewport', but no prompt came up. i just get that pop-up where you choose the scale and render style and all that. do you know how i can get that prompt back?

thank you!

[create a viewport of a selected area]

hi!

when i click 'view' / 'create viewport', it creates a viewport of everything on my design layer. if i want to create a viewport of a selected area (in order to do a detail, for example), how do i do this? i don't want to copy the drawing and put it on a fresh layer and modify it, that seems really backwards.

thanks!

[export as pdf issues]

what i see on my screen are black fonts on a white background. when i export as pdf it exports beautifully. when i export as batch pdf, there's just a black rectangle where the text should be. i don't understand why these two options produce different outputs when they provide essentially the same function.

incidentally, how to i set my layers to grayscale?

thank you!

[export as pdf issues]

hi again!

if i export a drawing as a pdf, i don't seem to have an option to greyscale it.

if i export a drawing as a pdf (batch), there's an option to turn off color, but then for some bizarre reason the text on my drawing is totally blacked out. it doesn't happen when i export as an individual pdf.

can anyone help me with these two things?

[can't seem to figure out where to adjust font/size of dims!]

thank you! what a weird place to put it!!

[can't seem to figure out where to adjust font/size of dims!]

hi!

if i click on a dimension i placed on a sheet layer, the object palette gives me a host of options, but none to affect the font/size of my dimensions! i'm sure there's a really easy way to do this! can anyone help?

thanks again! i realize i've been asking a ton of questions but the search on this website is sort of useless. also i have to log in twice before i can post - does anyone else have that problem? i'm using firefox.

[when i put down a breakline, can i have everything after it disappear?]

thank you!

[when i put down a breakline, can i have everything after it disappear?]

hi!

when i annotate a drawing with a breakline (which i do on a sheet layer), is there an easy way to have everything after the breakline disappear?

thanks!

[is there a way to draw several connecting 2D lines without clicking so much]

click-drag drawing is a step in the right direction. thank you!

[is there a way to draw several connecting 2D lines without clicking so much]

hi!

if i click on the 2d line tool in the basic tools palette, i click once to start drawing a line, and then click a second time when i want to stop drawing. is there some way i can arrange things so that a new line immediately starts where the old one ends? i realize the 2d polygon tool does this, but then it gets trick editing individual lines. and also when i use the polygon tool i end up with an enclosed shape.

basically i'm trying to save myself having to double click all the time with the 2d line tool. it shouldn't be necessary. autocad and sketchup both allow you to draw lines without double clicking all the time.

thanks!

[the stupid pink square is the Working Plane...it's kinda cool, actually]

thank you for your help! this program is the worst sometimes!!

[When I put objects on 'Layer' plane, they switch to '3D' and don't show up]

Hi!

When I select some lines that I imported from a DWG file, and change the layer from 'screen' to 'layer', the plane switches automatically to '3D' and then the object disappears in my viewport. What's going on!

[the stupid pink square is the Working Plane...it's kinda cool, actually]

of my screen..

i can't click on anything anymore. any idea what button i pressed? this program is still irritating me!

[Should I be hatching in design layer or sheet layer?]

If I draw a rectangle and hatch it, the hatch generally appears to be at an incorrect scale. I tried the 'scale' button on the edit hatch dialog, but it doesn't appear to affect it.

If I create a viewport and go to the sheet layer, the hatch is still unchanged. but if I create a rectangle directly on the sheet layer, the hatch is affected by scale and looks about right.

i'm not sure what i'm doing wrong - it would make sense to hatch in design layer, right?

[exporting as PDF issues]

hi,

this has happened twice now. when i export a work sheet as a PDF it usually (99% of the time) exports perfectly. occasionally, however, all it will export is this blown-up version of my drawing. it's not in scale, and the drawings go right off the page. no matter what i choose for my export range this happens.

any ideas?

thanks!