[solved] Block Attributes and AutoCAD

[ryancousins]

Windows 11 Pro
QCAD 3.28.8

I have a DXF I need to send to someone that uses AutoCAD. As a teacher I have free access to all Autodesk products, so I downloaded AutoCAD just to see what my file looked like in that program. I noticed that my block attributes do not show up. I'm specifically concerned about the "Rep Plot (ARCH C)" layout block. I never use ACAD so I have no idea what I'm doing in that program.

Note that I use blocks as a means to store separate drawings all in one file so I don't have several files to keep track of. I know that isn't standard practice, but it's always worked fine for me within QCAD. I find it easier than having several disparate items scattered in model space and creating viewports for each of those separate items, or having to worry about manually re-inserting external library items if I make a change to one of those library drawings. Also note that much of the text on the Rep Plot uses the "Graphite Light" font, which I have included in the zip file attachment.

I'm wondering what silly thing I might be doing that is preventing ACAD from seeing my block attribute text. Since my "Rep Plot" block contains several other blocks, I tried exploding that main Rep Plot block to see if that helped ACAD "see" the text in those sub-blocks but that didn't seem to make a difference.

I appreciate any thoughts anyone has.

[Husky]

Hi ryancousins,

I'm wondering what silly thing I might be doing that is preventing ACAD from seeing my block attribute text. Since my "Rep Plot" block contains several other blocks, I tried exploding that main Rep Plot block to see if that helped ACAD "see" the text in those sub-blocks but that didn't seem to make a difference.

I don't think that you did a silly thing! But it is also possible that I do the same silly thing because I can't figure out what is going on despite I tried hard for hours ...

After I tried and failed to figure out what is causing this behavior I sett up a new drawing with similar settings. It shows the same problem in a AC software.
The drawing has 2 Layout Blocks, Arch C, 1:1. ACAD can only see one and ignores the second one completely!
I used a block to place it in a layout block. This block is rendered in AC on an absolute different position, the page is rotated bei 90°and the scale of the block is off.
QCAD layout block looks like this:

Husky-2022.10.18-03.png (16 KiB) Viewed 2611 times

same drawing in ACAD looks like this:

Husky-2022.10.18-01.png (5.78 KiB) Viewed 2611 times

I teste this in QCAD 3.20.0-pro and 3.27.8.0 - same result!

@Andrew
Please have a look and enlighten us what we are doing wrong!

[andrew]

This drawing has its ATTMODE set to 0 (all attributes are always off = not displayed) instead of the default 1 (attributes are shown if visible). Note sure where this system variable value comes from but pretty sure it's not from QCAD as QCAD sets it to 1 by default and then ignores but retains it.

Anyway, type ATTMODE in Autocad and enter 1.

Husky: layout settings work completely differently in QCAD and Autocad, i.e. are not meant to be compatible. If you want to print in both, you have to set up in both separately.

[ryancousins]

Thanks for your help, guys.

This seemed to help with my file, however, when trying out Husky's test file, it looked like I could see the attributes in the layouts but not in model space, and changing ATTMODE to 0 or 1 didn't seem to change this. Husky, if you try changing the ATTMODE for your test file, I'd be curious to know if you get the same results.