2011

Table Of Contents
Unload Xrefs in Large Drawings
When a referenced drawing (xref) is unloaded from the current drawing, the
drawing opens much faster and uses less memory.
The xref definition is unloaded from the drawing file, but the internal pointer
to the referenced drawing remains. The xref is not displayed, and nongraphical
object information does not appear in the drawing. However, you can restore
all the information by reloading the xref. If XLOADCTL (demand loading) is
set to 1, unloading the drawing unlocks the original file.
You should unload a reference file if it is not needed in the current drawing
session but may be used later for plotting. You can maintain a working list of
unloaded xrefs in the drawing file that you can load as needed.
Quick Reference
Commands
EXTERNALREFERENCES
Opens the Reference Manager palette.
System Variables
XLOADCTL
Turns xref demand-loading on and off, and controls whether it opens the
referenced drawing or a copy.
Set Paths for Temporary Xref File Copies
When you turn on demand loading with copy, you can control where copies
of externally referenced drawings are to be placed.
When you turn on demand loading with copy, the XLOADPATH system
variable can be used to indicate the path where copies of externally referenced
drawings are to be placed. The path you specify remains in effect for all drawing
sessions until you indicate a different path. If no value for XLOADPATH is
specified, the temporary file copies are placed in the standard folder for
temporary files.
If you find that referencing drawings over a network is slow, it is recommended
that you set XLOADPATH to reference a local folder, and set XLOADCTL to
2 so that the externally referenced files are demand loaded from your local
machine. Conversely, to minimize the number of temporary files created by
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