Zwcad Hot Tip: How To Delete Stubborn Layers

By Author: Paul W. Walker
Total Articles: 7
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In your daily design work, you may encounter the same issue I do: sometimes there are too many layers in my drawings, many of which have little or nothing on them. I can't, however, seem to delete them, even with the Purge command. When there are so many layers, I find that they make my design work more inconvenient. This issue annoyed me long enough that I figured out some methods of how to get rid of them. I can't wait to share them with you.

We usually use Purge command to remove the unused named items from the current drawing, such as the blocks, layers, linetypes, text styles, and dimension styles that are not being used.

Sometimes, however, layers are nested in blocks, and in this case Purge seems to not work. Some users have suggested that the Delete Layer command is available, found in ZWCAD under the Layer sub-menu of the Express Tools. Yes, it works. But it is not the best way, because it will also delete layers that contain objects. Your drawing could definitely incur some damage if you aren't paying attention!

Here are some other methods that I want to share with you:

Method ...
... 1: Copy'n Paste

a. Turn off the useless layers.
b. Select all objects.
c. Copy them (Ctrl+C or CopyClip command), and then paste them (Ctrl+V or PasteClip) to a new drawing.

Method 2: WBlock

a. Select the objects you want to remain.
b. Use the WBlock command to write these objects to a new drawing file.

Method 3: LayTrans

a. Use the LayTrans command to translate the layers you want to delete to another drawing file or new drawing file.

These are my quick tips on how to delete stubborn layers. If you have a better method, or tips on other aspects of making CAD operations more efficient, please share them with us on the ZWCAD forum http://bit.ly/qMDQoT . Let's move ahead, together!