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: