Copy A Project (6:05 min)

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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Our last section of learning about AutoCAD

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Electrical projects is learning how to copy a project.

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Now this is incredibly important because I

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would bet that most of you watching this probably

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don't start every project you have completely from scratch.

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You more than likely find a project similar to the last one

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that you did, copy that and then start

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making the edits that you need for the next project.

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It's the easier way to do things.

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It's already been done, why reinvent the wheel.

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So with that said, my advice to you

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when you're first getting started with electrical

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is to create a template drawing.

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So that's a DWT file just like any other core AutoCAD DWT.

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That has all of your settings and your title blocks in it

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that you would typically want to use in any new drawing

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that you create.

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You might have a couple of different kinds of templates

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and that's fine too.

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Maybe you have a panel drawing template, things like that.

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The next thing you're going to do

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is create a standard WDP file, that's the project file

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that we were talking about.

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That will allow you to have the standard settings that you're

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used to seeing inside of it that you

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could use to copy any settings for any next project.

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The final thing you'll do is create a standard project end

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to end, maybe you have five at your company,

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maybe you have two.

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And they might need tweaks and changes

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depending on customer requirements,

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other changes for whatever it is that you're working on.

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But those will be the foundation for all projects

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you build after that.

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And use that as your core template for everything

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you do moving forward as opposed to trying

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to find that one project from five years ago that

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was maybe close to this one.

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Keep a good solid template project or a couple

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to be able to make your changes and tweaks.

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Maybe you change manufacturers of certain kinds of components

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you're purchasing, get that changed in your template

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and then you don't have to think about it with the next project.

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It's already there, you just copy that project.

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So let's talk about how to actually copy that project.

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So if I wanted to copy my project here,

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my project basics.

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Really important thing is not to just do this out

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in Windows Explorer, because you're not

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going to get all of the options that you'll

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get within the copy project command in Electrical.

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Now one of the things I always do

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is make sure that I shut down all

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of the drawings that are currently

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open in a live project.

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So if I have that project as my current project,

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I will turn those off just so I'm not

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staring at and keeping active something that's

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needing to be copied over.

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Now, what I'm going to do is come up again

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to my project tab of the ribbon and click on this copy button.

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When I do that, I can either find the project that I want

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to copy or if it is my active project, which is what mine is,

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I can just click this button.

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When I click OK, it's then going to ask me

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where do I want to keep my next project.

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So I am going to right click in here to give it a new folder,

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just to keep the everything tidy and separated.

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And I am going to call this folder Copy Project

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and inside the folder I am then going

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to give the new project a name of Copy Project, very

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unique settings.

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Now, I just created the WDP file and now I

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want to tell it what drawing's I want

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to include in this new project.

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Now, I'm going to end up hitting Do All

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and this is what you'll see every time you

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see these drawings to process dialog boxes.

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But I just want to pause and show you the folder structure.

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So this is what I was talking about in an earlier

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module around being able to filter by certain folders.

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So if I have schematics or I just

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want to copy the panel drawings, I

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can do that as well without having to manually grab them

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from this list.

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But I'm going to Do All to grab everything.

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Now, this is the important part that you would not get out

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of a Windows Explorer copy.

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This is also going to look for all of the support files

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that we have inside of AutoCAD Electrical.

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Now, those support files will allow

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us to do a lot of extra things that we're

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going to be diving into over the next couple of modules.

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Things like our title block setups,

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project line labels, standards for installation and location

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codes, those can all be defined and copied

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from one project to another.

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So we want to make sure that it looks for all of those files.

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You can see there's quite a few others that

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could be in existence that we would want

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to copy with the new project.

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So I'm going to click OK on this and now I

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can do a find and replace on my existing project.

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And change all of the names so that these drawings do not

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have the same names as my old project.

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Again, in Windows Explorer you'd have

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to manually do that or else you'd

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be having duplication of these same things

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even though they're located in different folders.

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Not ideal when you're managing your drawings.

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So what I'm going to say is I want it to find Project_Basics

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and I want to replace it with Copy_Projects.

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And if I do that, now all of my project names

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have been updated.

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All of my one, two, three, four, five, six

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is still kept on their.

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Super easy to do that find and replace and I'll click OK.

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And now my new project has been created

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with all of the same settings, same external files,

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and same information as the project I was just on.

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So I can expand it, I can see the folder structure,

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I can see everything in there.

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And that is the beauty of copy project.

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Now, I want you to try this on your own

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by going out to the copy a new project exercise.