Civil Engineering Association

This is a software by me in visual basic 6.0. and its freeware and dedicated to civilea users...no restrictions from my side...it was developed for a specific task which was assigned to me but you can find many applications for this tool....


Often you want to print your drawings arranged like this!

PLANS

S-100
S-200
S-300

SECTIONS

S-101
S-102
S-103

etc.
If you place them under one folder, they will be sorted out like this

S-100
S-101
S-200
S-201
S-300
S-301

if you print like this, you will have to rearrange all the sheets after printing from plotter, imagine if you have to arrange a set of 300 sheets. so what?
So the problem is, you have an arranged drawing list in excel but drawing nos are such that they have problem in sorting out in a folder and you want to avoid wasting your time for rearranging after printing?

here is the solution. follow this!
1) select the main folder where your main pdf drawings are saved.
2) export your excel (sorted) drawing list to a text file with first line as the first drawing no and the last line as the last drawing no. and select this file with ".txt" extension.
***CAUTION***your drawing nos in drawing list must be same as saved in folder.
for example you have a text file containing drawing file nos as
S-100
S-200
S-300

etc so your orignal file names in save location should be
S-100.pdf
S-200.pdf
S-300.pdf

3)while "SORT FILES ONLY (NO PDF MERGE) is still selected, press the button "RENAME & MERGE"
***CAUTION***if any file is missing or opened by another user, it will ask you for the appropriate option.

NOW THERE ARISES ANOTHER PROBLEM, you have done well, you have arranged all your sheets but what if you want to print like 100 sheets on the plotter, so will you open each pdf one by one and press CTRL + P? or you will open PDF merger and merge all the sheets. but again you cannot merge even 50 sheets in one single file for plotter to print, you have to merge the pdf files maximum 10 to 12. so again its manual and time consuming. here you go!

1) starting instructions again from step2, uncheck the "SORT FILES ONLY (NO PDF MERGE)" and select no. of sets. for example if you have 300 drawings, you can have 30 sets, each including 10 drawings. so you will put 30 in the field. and the press the merge button.

Now these 30 files are ready to be sent to plotter in arranged manner one by one. Just imagine...without this software...u would first make 30 sets each of 10 drwaings in pdf and then after printing...so have to rearrange them one by one (300 sheets) ... so isnt it easy...

Well, the idea behind your program it is interesting - from where it came?
It seems that in your company there is a very inconvenient way of naming and arranging the printed drawings. I would offer you instead of wasting your time to make such programs, to talk with somebody from the management who cares about his company, and resolve the naming/arranging problem once and forever.
Usually the project manager makes an ordered list of the drawings to be included in the project. Then using some naming customs of the company the drawings have their names and order. And everybody who reads the project expects to find the drawings in the same order as in the ordered list.

And combining of PDF files is easy with Acrobat/Foxiit etc. 'free' programs.

I will suggest you (as an old man) not to waste your energy and talent for such programs, that only repair the 'mistakes of Management' :JC_cheers:

(and don't use 'fancy fonts' in your future serious programs)

dear ynopum,

#1-i have noted your precious pieces of advice for my next coming "SERIOUS" softwares to not include "fance fonts" type things.

#2-my company is an international consultancy company with 3 international branches and we are currently working on a 400m high rise tower. So your supposition about my company drafting standards is not true.

#3-the drawing nos. iv mentioned in my post are just for an example. and donot reflect the standard used in our company.

#4-if you have better program than this one, its perfectly alright, you should not use my software, the main reason for sharing was to attract some visual basic programmer like me and to improve the application and to share this apps for the like minded people.

#5-it was not a wastage of time for me and neither it was to repair the "mistake of management". it was just an effort to save time cz being a structural engineer you dont have to waste time on printing. but at that specific time if had not developed it, it would have taken my 2 whole days instead of (2 HOURS) bcz all drafts men were too busy near submission date.

#6-finally as i mentined...this software has other apps too...for example to arrange 1000s of pdfs etc.

#7-my this sheet was i think very useful and popular for forum mebers which i uploaded for forum members...because using design excel sheet sometimes need changes in formula so i did some coding and made an effort to save time for users...IF YOU WANT TO DO ALL THESE STUFF MANUALLY, ITS UPTO YOU, IM NOT ORDERING TO DO SO...

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addition

DWG REV TITLE
S20B3 2 ORIENTATION PLAN SUBGRADE LEVEL B3 GA
S20B3A 2 SUBGRADE LEVEL B3 GA PLAN (AREA A)
S20B3B 1 SUBGRADE LEVEL B3 GA PLAN (AREA B)

S21B3 2 ORIENTATION PLAN SUB GRADE LEVEL B3 RC
S21B3A 2 SUBGRADE LEVEL B3 RC PLAN (AREA A)
S21B3B 0 SUBGRADE LEVEL B3 RC PLAN (AREA B)

S20B2 4 ORIENTATION PLAN SUBGRADE LEVEL B2 GA
S20B2A 2 SUBGRADE LEVEL B2 GA PLAN (AREA A)
S20B2B 3 SUBGRADE LEVEL B2 GA PLAN (AREA B)

S21B2 4 ORIENTATION PLAN SUBGRADE LEVEL B2 RC
S21B2A 2 SUBGRADE LEVEL B2 RC PLAN (AREA A)
S21B2B 1 SUBGRADE LEVEL B2 RC PLAN (AREA B)

you can see
S = structures
2 = plans
0 for GA plan and 1 for RC plan
B3, B2, L1, etc for levels
A,B etc for areas (for bigger projects)

so if you want first GA plans and then RC plans so your sheets should be in this arrangement:-
and suppose you have B3 (basement 3) and then going up have B2

S20B3
S21B3
then
S20B2
S21B2

how you will arrange this in folder?

Sorry CoolestBliss , I didn't wanted to say anything personal or so.
But you see - your company's numbering way needs such program. Of course you did it because you (or your colleagues) can save a lot of time with it.

Also I haven't said anything about the drafting standards, but the naming of the drawings. I leave to you to decide if the naming is fine, if such naming needs a program to print the drawings. I am not blaming you.

This is largely an off-topic but I want just to share some experience: in the 'non-American' world there are some standards (from the start of the 20-century, almost all of them are now ISO!), according to them all the drawings should have only consecutive numbers (also the pages of the text), without letters, and the folded paper drawings should appear in that order. This was done for the sole purpose to identify is a drawing is missing (these were the times - without USB-flash drives and notebooks on the site :blush: ). If there are subgroups, they are not distinguished by a letter, but by number. The type of the drawing, should appear in the title-block, not in the number, etc.