Locking a drawing

[Bart Rammeloo]

Use the VectorWorks viewer. You can distribute it freely, it reads VW files, and you can change stuff like layer and class visibilities or paper size, but you cannot modify the design in itself. Objects in the file remain untouched.

Best,

BaRa

[alanmac]

Am I wrong ?

Sorry but I think if you want to get round this by not sending a pdf, because that can be copied , extracted etc. then Viewer may not be the answer. Surely once in Viewer you could then "print to pdf" and then they have a pdf of the file ?

In fact, correct me if I'm wrong, by sending the file to use with Viewer you are giving them more information to potentially extract than pdf's. At least in the case of a pdf they can only view the pdf.

Some pdf creators give you security and encryption options, may be worth you looking into your pdf creator to see what it can offer.

alan

[grant_PD]

With Acrobat one can lock the file so that it is for web viewing only, and although you could print from screen grabs it at least is a discouragement.

I think what sparky is really asking is if the actual file can be locked. If I sent a file to someone who had VW and told them to use the viewer, they could still open the file in VW and take stuff out.

I know that if I send a file to someone with say, a truss in it, and they don't have spotlight, then the truss appears but isn't editable in the IOP. It would be great to be able to do AT LEAST that with my custom made objects. As of right now, I have two versions of my files: one that is in house and the other that is outgoing. In the outgoing file I remove all my textures, custom scripts, unused items, etc. so that I'm not sharing all of my hard work with the world.

[AndyM]

Adobe Illustrator can open a PDF and convert it to DWG. Text is text, lines are lines. I do it all the time.

[islandmon]

The inability to lock up layers,symbols, etc. is a severe limitation.

Prior to sending a file you can try using 'Root' to change the permissions to [ -rw-r--r-- ]. Post the file to an Apache Server with these permissions.

[Joe Golden ENT]

Is there a way to lock a drawing so that design elements can't be taken from it? For revision reasons we want to send a VW file and not a PDF.

[chstech]

Grant, This is the same topic we discussed a while ago is it? As we had agreed the pdf if not an option.

[grant_PD]

yes this topic has come up before. PDF's a way more useful than a line drawing, but not nearly as useful as the file itself. I think what some of want to see is sort of like a workgroup reference: the ability to email a file to someone that they can look over and work with, but keeping some propriertary stuff unusable.

[mike m oz]

Grant - there is no safe way to do this.

Even AutoCAD's much vaunted (by them) secure DWF file format is not in fact secure. There are several programs around which will convert the DWF file back into a DWG or DXF drawing. This website is just one of them. http://www.anydwg.com/dwf-to-dwg-home.html

The only really secure way is to send them a paper copy of the drawing. Even then they can convert it into a drawing if they really want to via scanning or Indian sweatshop.

At least with a PDF you can password protect it so that only the intended recipient can view it.

[ 10-16-2005, 10:50 PM: Message edited by: mike m oz ]

[alanmac]

Hi

I think Mike is correct in the only or at least most secure way is a paper copy, although as he points out not above abuse.

My company has signed up to ACID which hopes to stop the widespread abuse of peoples work.

We also have laws in this country which ACID advises on implementing to safeguard your work. It may not be for every business sector but I think its a step in the right direction and every little helps.

www.acid.uk.com

Alan

[ 10-17-2005, 05:29 AM: Message edited by: alanmac ]

[grant_PD]

how is it then that if someone gives me a file that has say, a truss in it, and if I don't have spotlight that object will be uneditable? All I want to do is do the same thing to my own custom objects...

[matto]

Plug-in objects have effectively two parts.

Each instance is basicely is a group containing the objects of last time it was created attached to this is a record containing the information that the script uses.

There is also a script in your plug-ins folder.

if you don't have the script then there is no direct way to edit the PIO, but the object will still appear as last drawn.

In your case if you had spotlight and all it's plug in scripts then you could edit those Spotlight objects.

On the other hand if you are the only one with your plugin scripts then anyone else will see your objects the same way.

The only way to edit is to convert to group and edit by hand.