By Dennis Collin
AutoCAD has several ways to copy data to other drawings, including tools like Copy and Paste and Wblock. The Add-in DetailCopy extends this functionality by providing different options of selections. It provides an ability to copy a specific area of the drawing and convert the elements to a block. This can be very useful when creating detailed drawings.
Located within the Add-ins tab, clicking on the command, the user is prompted to select a clipping polyline or utilise a crossing window or polygon selection. The elements are then copied into a block, with a time-date stamp name. Using the standard Rename command the block can be renamed to suit.
It should be noted that dimensions and field-based objects will lose some of their intelligence as they are exploded, but these elements can always be cleaned up, or replaced as appropriate within a suitable environment such as Block Editor.
The DetailCopy Tool is a free add-in and is available for all current AutoCAD versions (2018-2022) and can be downloaded from the App store here:
https://apps.autodesk.com/ACD/en/Detail/Index?id=2644859942786584462&appLang=en&os=Win32_64
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