Sharing Workspaces in AutoCAD
Comments(15) Recently I received a question from Carrie from Slaggie Architects about sharing workspaces in AutoCAD. She asked, “…in the spirit of being lazy, my co-workers and I have been trying to find a way to put our workspace profiles onto our network so that when we use a laptop, or a remote computer we can easily import the workspace and begin working. I have not been able to succesfully import a workspace profile using the CUI dialog. We are working in ’06 by the way! If you have any suggestions or tips on this can you plese send them our way?”
Well, I am going to show you how to do it in AutoCAD 2008, since that is what I am running. Someone correct me if I am wrong but I don’t think there is a big difference in the process between ’06 and ’08.
What is a “workspace”, you ask? It’s a way for you to save the layout (toolbars, palettes, etc.) of your AutoCAD environment. Workspaces are a great way to keep everything neat and tidy, just the way you want it.
Create A Custom Workspace
To get started creating a custom workspace, first arrange the toolbars and palettes exactly the way you like.
Then look for this toolbar in AutoCAD:
This is your Workspaces toolbar. Click the “Workspace Settings…” button:
…and check the radio button telling it to “Automatically save workspace changes” when switching workspaces:
Hit OK. Click the down arrow in the workspaces toolbar and select “Save Current As…”
…and give your custom workspace a name:
You will see your custom workspace name appear in the toolbar.
On the command line type CUI to open the Custom User Interface dialog box. Click on the “Transfer” tab. You will see something like this:
Drag your custom workspace from the left side (Main CUI) over to the right side (New CUI), dropping it right on top of the word, “Workspaces”:
On the right side (New CUI), click the down arrow and select “Save As…” and save the new CUI file someplace where you won’t forget.
Hit OK in the CUI dialog box.
Share Your Custom Workspace
The nice thing about workspaces is that you can go to a new computer and make AutoCAD immediately look the way you want it.
To transfer your custom workspace to a new computer, type CUI on the command line and go to the “Transfer” tab:
On the right side, click the down arrow and select “Open…” to browse and open the CUI file that contains your custom workspace. When it is opened, drag your custom workspace from the right side, to the left side (Main CUI) and drop it over the word “Workspaces.”
Hit OK in the CUI dialog box.
To switch to your custom workspace, click the down arrow in the workspaces toolbar and select it:
That’s all there is to it!
Remember, when you get everything perfect, be sure click the “Workspace Settings…” button to change this setting so it won’t save any changes made to your custom workspace when you switch to another workspace:
<strong>Sharing Workspaces in AutoCAD …</strong>
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Really useful. Thanks. I can get this to work between 2008 & 2008 machines as well as between 2007 & 2007 machines – but when I try to load from 2008 to 2007 the workspaces do not show in the saved CUI and it says at the bottom ‘cannot import this node’. Anyone know why??
THis is probably due to the fact that 2007 didn’t have the "Dashboards" and since 2008 does, 2007 doesn’t know what to do with these parts of the CUI file. Will it allow you to go the other way? 2007 to 2008?To convert CUI’s from 2007 to 2008 you may want to look at the Migrate Custom Settings option in START> PROGRAMS> AUTODESK> AUTOCAD 2008. This will update your settings from 2007 to 2008
I know its many years later but its still good info. Thanks for your help.
you just saved me a few hours of setting up civil3d on my new machine…thanks a lot!
Thanks heaps, I cant understand autocad help pages generally.
Thanks heaps, you wouldn’t have a LISP routine that could do this for a named workspace by any chance??
I don’t. Wouldn’t that be nice!
Very helpful. Works in AutoCAD 2011.
Thanks, that’s exactly what I was looking for.
This is the first set of instructions I have found on customizations that have been clear, concise, well documented and, for me, worked!
I have very little experience with AutoCAD and only use it when supporting my users from an IT standpoint.
It’s frustrating when I’m trying to figure out how to make/save customizations/workspaces, etc., prior to moving a user to a new computer. This has helped immensely in copying out a specific workspace.
Now I just have to figure out the customization workings. Thanks for a job well-done.
Thank you Susan!
what’s the work around for when you have a lab full of computers set to not save anything after logout?
I have created a custom workspace on my main computer called ALEXH-1. In doing so, I created a custom SCREEN menu and also created a custom IMAGE TILE menu for inserting frequently used blocks. These come from a customization I did to Autocad 14 by writing it into the *.MNU file. I have gone through the process of transferring the CUI to aanother custom CUI and saving it to a thumb drive to bring into another computer that I want to have set up exactly as my work desktop. When I open the custom CUI on the second computer and copy it to the main CUI window, and make it current, my custom SCREEN menu and the custom IMAGE TILE menu are not displayed. How do I transfer these settings along with the workspace. It is a lot of work to enter all of that again on the second computer.
Any help will be greatly appreciated!
Alex
So simple, so perfect. Thanks!!!