By Dennis Collin
When working on AutoCAD all day it is inevitable that many files are modified with AutoCAD showing many drawing tabs of edited drawings. However, if there is a need to leave your workspace promptly, perhaps a lengthy commute home, it is imperative to ensure that all your work is saved, applications exited, workstation shutdown etc. before turning off the lights!
When working with any application it is important to remember to save your work. The Autosave function is all very well, but personally I always ensure that I save my work every 20 minutes or so or whenever I leave my desk for a screen break. When multiple drawings are open it can be somewhat tedious switching to each tab, saving the document and clicking close on each file, especially last thing on a Friday afternoon.
Fortunately, AutoCAD has some very useful commands, which many users are unaware of. These enhanced save and close commands are part of AutoCAD’s Express Tools.
The SAVEALL command can be accessed via the command prompt. Simply type in the command and press enter. SAVEALL will attempt to save all drawings opened but leave them open for continued editing. If a drawing has not yet been named, the command will prompt for a file name.
CLOSEALL can also be accessed from the command prompt. This command will attempt to close all open drawings. A message box is displayed for each unsaved drawing, in which users are provided an option save any changes to the drawing before closing it.
There also is a command called CLOSEALLOTHER which also will close all drawings apart from the current document. Like the Closeall command an option is provided to save any changes to the other drawings.