By Dennis Collin
AutoCAD 2019 introduced a very useful drawing compare feature to its collaboration set of commands. Drawing compare enables users to compare changes between current and previous versions of drawing. Altered elements will display in different colours.
In the example above a furniture layout drawing has been altered. Using the Drawing Compare command, a different version of the drawing can be selected and AutoCAD will highlight the differences where elements have been added, deleted or changed. The compare toolbar featured allows users to configure the colours of the altered objects, zoom to each instance of change and export out the changed objects to another file or merge the original elements into the newer file.
In AutoCAD 2022 the drawing compare capability was improved to work with changes to external reference files. Should a link file be updated, the host drawing will display a bubble notification. Once acknowledged and applied a similar view shows with the altered elements within an Xref being highlighted.
To clear the drawing compare graphic, simply click the green tick icon. Should the drawing need to be compared later rerun the DWG Compare command from the Ribbon menu or type ‘Compare’ at the command prompt.
Drawing Compare, External Reference Files, Blocks and Template files are just some of the topics we cover on our Advanced or bespoke AutoCAD courses. For more details contact one of the team on https://training.cadline.co.uk/ where questions can be asked via the Quickchat interface or other contact details can be accessed.