Converting Viewports to Design Layers

[engles]

Hello,

I would like to know if it is possibe to convert a series of viewports to objects on a design layer. I am hoping to use viewports as a means of 'cropping' a section from a complicated drawing. Is this possible? Or do I have to use the cropping tool within the design layer?

[Robert Anderson]

Why not just crop the section onto a sheet layer? In other words, why does the standard workflow not work for you?

[engles]

Thanks for responding. I have got a large drawing and want to make several a larger scale drawings of parts of it. It would take to long to clip out each part of the drawing. Viewports alow me to do this qucikly but I then want to break the realtionship with the original drawing so i can make alterations. If I could 'detach' the viewports or convert them to normal design layers I could do this - in the same way a workgroup an be detached from a drawing and then edited.

Thanks.

[Robert Anderson]

One way to make alterations is to use the "annotation" capability of the viewport. You can draw anything (not just notes) into an annotation of a viewport. This is great for making little changes, or adding additional detail, etc.

I'd say give viewports a try, and use the annotation feature for this.

[Jonathan Pickup]

I agree with Robert, give the viewports a try. I would not like to be able to break the link to the design layer, the whole point of viewports is that they are linked. If you want to make a similar detail, but altered, then

- work in the design layer

- copy the area of the detail

- use the clip tool to remove bits that you don't want

- edit the detail

- create a vewport from the new detail