I'm at work, and my boss wants to find a way to password protect autocad files so he can give them to other contractors without them modifying them. Autocad 2004 and above comes with password protection which is useless because you have to give them the pw to read it, and then they have full access to the file anyway.

I know about autovault, but it costs 300$ and we want to find another solution first. They use autocad 2000, 14, and 2008. So something that works with them all would be great. I mentioned just giving them in pdf format but they want an actual dwg file.

Any ideas??

[Edited on July 17, 2007 at 2:40 PM. Reason : .]

7/17/2007 2:39:22 PM

is saving them in an image format acceptable - so they can view but not modify?

7/17/2007 2:41:52 PM

I asked them about an image/pdf format and they said they wanted dwg autocad files. My boss then said he wants to pw protect them so they can only access certain aspects of each file. Or be read only.

Ok...In thier specifications they say they want a dwg file. He just wants to protect it so they can't modify it, but can still open it in autocad. Basically he wants a dwg read only file, with the .dwg extension so he still abides by thier guidelines.

[Edited on July 17, 2007 at 2:50 PM. Reason : .]

7/17/2007 2:46:29 PM

save it as a dwf. they can open it with autocad or autocad viewer.

7/17/2007 4:53:40 PM

That's what i was thinking. I'll try that out tomorrow. Or maybe a dxf.

7/17/2007 4:55:32 PM

are the files going to be sent back to you? aka is that why you're worried about them changing them?

some subcontractors open the DWG files and add their own individual work (ie P,M,E) instead of trying to overlay...dont know about your particular situation tho

7/17/2007 5:39:35 PM

300 bucks is cheap if you care this much about protecting the file.

if they just need to look at/print it, dwf is definitely the answer. Otherwise cough up the moola

7/17/2007 5:50:05 PM

ask why they need the dwg

if you dont like the answer

find another contractor that will do the work

[Edited on July 17, 2007 at 5:56 PM. Reason : 

7/17/2007 5:56:28 PM

Quote :

"300 bucks is cheap if you care this much about protecting the file."

is what i'm thinking too.

7/17/2007 6:02:40 PM

PDF isn't going to let them dimension accurately
Images aren't going to work because they won't be able to dimension off of them accurately
Read-Only won't work because they can just go to file properties and change it.
DXF will still let them edit the file, it's a transfer format to other programs

DWF was meant for exactly this purpose.

7/17/2007 7:39:58 PM

where do you work (ie what discipline) cause if you dont want anyone to be able to edit it and its just contractors then i dont see why pdf wont really work since they dont edit them. but if you are talking about consultants, they need to be able to edit them. if theyre actually professionals then they will just work on it based on their discipline. it happens all the time.

also noen is right, if youre paying thousands of dollars for software, a few hundred to get something you actually want is pretty much a no brainer.

[Edited on July 17, 2007 at 9:17 PM. Reason : .]

7/17/2007 9:16:14 PM

pm zorthage

7/17/2007 9:18:20 PM

^^^ Yeah that's why i was worried about pdf files. DWF will do fine for now. We'd eventually spend 300 if need be, just wanted to check other options. It's a mechanical engineering firm i'm interning at in Charlotte.

7/17/2007 11:05:33 PM

^^^i concur, all you need to have them do is sign an agreement, we do it all the time too (in architecture)

but DWF is so much better than PDF

[Edited on July 18, 2007 at 12:34 AM. Reason : .]

7/18/2007 12:34:09 AM