Moving projects from AutoCAD

This page is about your files. For how the commands and the screen compare, see Coming from AutoCAD.

Bring a project across

1. Choose DXF or DWG. Both work. If you still have AutoCAD, saving as DXF from AutoCAD is the most direct route, because Musa CAD reads DXF itself. Otherwise set up DWG support once and open the DWG files directly.

2. Keep the folder together. Copy the whole project folder, not single drawings. External references and images are found relative to the drawing, so they must stay in the same place next to it.

3. Open the drawing. Choose Import ▸ DXF… or Import ▸ DWG… from the application menu. The drawing opens in a new tab.

4. Read the import message. It ends with what was skipped, if anything:

   Imported 412 entities on 9 layers (36 block refs over 12 definitions); skipped 3 unsupported (ACAD_TABLE, MULTILEADER).

   DXF files explains each kind of object that can be skipped.

5. Save it as .musa. Choose Save As and keep this as your working copy from now on. A .musa file keeps everything Musa CAD can do, which DXF and DWG cannot.

6. Check it. Zoom to extents (ZOOM, then E), look through the layers and layouts, and plot a page to compare with the original.

What comes across

From AutoCAD	In Musa CAD
Layers, with colour, linetype, lineweight, plot setting and description	The same
Blocks and attributes	The same. A block holds lines, arcs, circles, polylines, text and other blocks; other objects inside blocks are skipped and listed.
External references to DWG files	Convert the referenced files to DXF or .musa first. Musa CAD attaches .musa and .dxf files as references.
Dimension styles and text styles	The same
Layouts and viewports	The same, including per-viewport layer freezing
Hatches, gradients and wipeouts	The same
Tables and multileaders	Skipped on import in 0.8.0
SHX fonts	Drawn with Musa CAD’s own single-stroke font. See Images and fonts.
Plot style tables (CTB and STB files)	Not read. Musa CAD plots in colour, monochrome or greyscale, chosen in the Plot window.
3D objects	Skipped. Musa CAD is 2D only.

Bring your habits across

• Command aliases. Type ALIASEDIT and click Load… to add the aliases from your acad.pgp. Musa CAD keeps them in its own file, so your AutoCAD file is not changed.
• Keyboard shortcuts. Type CUI to set the keys you are used to.
• Templates. Open your template DWG or DXF, save it as .musa, and start new drawings from a copy of it.

Check text and dimensions in bulk

For a large project, the command line can check every drawing for text problems without opening a window:

for f in *.dxf; do musacad --check "$f" || echo "check $f"; done

It reports text that overlaps, runs outside the frame, or uses characters its font cannot draw. See The command line.

Next

If a drawing does not open or looks wrong, see Troubleshooting.