Announcement
November 7, 2017

Posted on November 7, 2017 by Synergis’ Application Consultant, Todd Schmoock
Sometimes you need to combine project drawings created by one user, and add them to a global project.  An example of this is when new drawings are created, or updated, by several users and the drawings need to be added to the master project.  You need to make sure the electrical properties carry over.  If you do not do it the right way the AutoCAD Electrical Properties will be blanked out because AutoCAD Electrical will treat the drawing(s) as a new addition rather than being updated.  Another example is when you created a drawing in one project, but need a similar drawing in another project.  AutoCAD Electrical’s “Copy To…” command allows you to copy it from one project to another, and allows you to rename it before adding it.
Understanding the Project Manager:
You can have several projects listed in the project manager, but only one project is active at a time.  The project at the top of the list is the active project.  All the projects below the active project are listed alphabetically.  If you need to activate one of the other projects shown in the project manager you should right-click on the project, and select Activate.  This will move the project to the top of the list.
Using the Copy To… command to combine drawings from one project to another:
The best practice is to have the project you want the drawing to go into be the active project, and the project the drawing is being copied from listed in the project manager.  Expand the project the drawing is coming from, and right-click on the drawing you want to copy.  Select Copy To… from the list of options.  When the Copy To dialog box opens navigate to the project folder you want to copy the drawing to.  Before selecting the Save button you need to decide if you want to change the file name.  Most of the time you will be giving it a new name because it is a similar drawing from another project, but needs to be unique for the new project it is going into.  However, if you are updating a master project you may be keeping the name the same.  If this is the case you will want to remove the existing drawing from the project manager to ensure the AutoCAD Electrical properties carry over.  You do not need to physically delete it from the Windows folder it just needs to be removed from the project list.  When asked if you want to replace the existing drawing you will click Yes.
After using the Copy To… command you will notice it adds the drawing to the bottom of the list of drawings.  To reorder them simply drag them to the correct location.  Once they are in the correct location you can run the Project-Wide Update/Retag tool to update the drawing number property.  If the original drawing was in a subfolder you used the Copy To… command on that subfolder will be duplicated in the project it was copied to.  If you do not want the subfolder drag the drawing out, and right-click on the folder then select Remove.  If any drawing(s) are in a subfolder you will remove the subfolder and all the drawings in it.