File formats and compatibility

LinceCAD works directly with AutoCAD's formats: it opens and saves DWG and DXF with no conversion, and what it saves opens in AutoCAD with all its entities. Compatibility is checked with AutoCAD 2027 on dozens of real drawings, auditing every copy.

Opening

OPEN (Ctrl+O), or dragging the file onto the window, opens:

• DWG files from R14 to 2018, that is, those written by every AutoCAD release from R14 to 2027;
• text DXF files of the same versions.

Each drawing opens in its own tab, in the background and with a progress bar (an 80 MB plan takes a few seconds). If the empty drawing from startup (Drawing1) has not been touched, it is replaced. Several drawings can be open at once, and you can copy and paste between them.

Saving

• QSAVE (Ctrl+S) saves the drawing in its format and version. A DWG older than 2000 (R14) is saved as DWG 2018.
• SAVEAS chooses the format and version. In the application menu and the File menu, Save As has a submenu with all the versions; when typed, it proposes DWG 2018.

When saving to an earlier version, objects that do not exist in it (proxy objects of third-party applications, render sun) are left out, with a warning. Drawings with AutoCAD Architecture objects can only be saved as DWG in their original version. The DWG 2000 format is not compressed, so it takes about twice the space of the same drawing in 2004 or later.

Safe saving

• The drawing is first written to a temporary file; only when it is complete does the original become .bak and the new file take its place. If anything fails, the original is left intact.
• Read-only files are not overwritten.
• When you close a drawing, exit, or open another drawing in its place, you are asked whether to save the changes.

Automatic save

Every 10 minutes, drawings with unsaved changes are saved in the background to the user's temporary folder (%TEMP%\lince\<name>_<n>.sv$). The file is deleted when the drawing is closed normally. If LinceCAD closes unexpectedly, opening the drawing again warns that there is a more recent automatic save: change its extension to .dwg and open it.

Damaged drawings

• AUDIT checks the integrity of the open drawing and fixes what is safe to fix.
• RECOVER opens a damaged file in tolerant mode, recovers whatever can be read and shows a report. Then save the drawing to keep what was repaired.
• If a file cannot be read, the error is shown and the drawing that was open is not lost.

Other formats

Notes

• Saving to R14 or R12, to DXF 2004 to 2013, or to binary DXF is not in the save dialog yet.
• There are no .dwt templates: NEW starts an empty metric drawing (ISO-25).
• LinceCAD does not associate itself with .dwg files when installed, so as not to take them from AutoCAD; the installer can add it to "Open with".

See also

What's new · External references · SAVEAS · RECOVER