Importing Styles

Now let’s imagine that you are working in your drawing and your company’s template was updated to include one or more object and label styles. There has also been a change to one of the properties of a style you commonly use, and you need to integrate that change within your drawing. How would you incorporate those changes within your drawing? Looking at the original styles and trying to re-create them within your drawing would be tedious work and prone to errors. That’s where the recently introduced Import Styles tool comes into action.

This tool allows you to import one or more object and label styles from a source drawing. You can also import from the source drawing its Table styles, Quantity Takeoff criteria, Alignment Design Check sets, Drawing Ambient settings, Feature settings, Command settings, and other user-defined settings such as expressions, property classifications, and page layouts. The last three can be imported as long as they are referenced by any of the imported label or table styles. However, using this tool does not allow you to import description key sets and point file formats, all the settings defined within the Drawing Settings dialog (except for the ambient settings mentioned previously), and the user-defined settings mentionedthat are not referenced by a style.
You can find this tool on the Manage tab ➢ Styles panel. In the same panel, there is also an option to purge styles. But for now we will explain the basics of importing styles.

Figure 1: Import and Purge found on the Styles panel give you access to tools to import Object and Label styles from your drawing of choice into the current drawing.

Before importing styles, you must save the file. In case you forget, Civil 3D will be kind enough to prompt you to save the drawing before you can proceed with the import. The import workflow begins when you click the Import button of the Styles panel. First you will be asked to select your source drawing for import of styles. This drawing can be either a DWG file or a template file, which is defined by the .dwt extension.

Once you select the file whose styles you will import, a dialog box will appears.

Figure 2: Import Civil 3D Styles dialog..

The Import Civil 3D Styles dialog has the following options:

Import Settings: The Import Settings option is located at the bottom of the dialog. This option is turned on by default. If you want to import the styles with disregard to the drawing settings, then you can uncheck Import Settings. However, if you want to match your drawing in all aspects to the source drawing, you should leave the option checked, which is the default setting. As you look through the list of styles to be imported, you will notice that some items are grayed out and can’t be modified.

The grayed-out styles represent items that are referenced by the command settings to be imported. As mentioned, the only time those styles would not be grayed out and available would be when the Import Settings box is not checked. You will learn about command settings toward the end of this section. Also note that you can either import all the styles from the source drawing or select which styles you want to import.

When importing styles, Civil 3D will do the following:

If the style is not within your drawing, the style will be added.
If the style already exists in your drawing, presenting the same style name, Civil 3D will recognize it as a conflict of styles and will check its settings against its equivalent in the source file; if the settings are different, they will be overwritten.
If a style is present in the drawing but not present in the source file, that style will be deleted, as long as it is not used (referenced) by an object in the drawing.

For each of the actions listed here, there is a way to toggle off one or more actions. Following, you can see what happens when you use the toggles:

Uncheck/Check Conflicting: You will also notice items with a warning symbol (see the surface style Contours 1’ and 5’ (Background) - in the Figure 2). The warning symbol indicates that there is a style in the current drawing with the same name as a style in the batch to be imported. Use the Uncheck Conflicting button if you do not want styles in your drawing to be overwritten by the style from the source file. As mentioned, if you leave these items selected, the incoming styles “win.” If you are not sure whether there is a difference between the styles, pause your cursor over the style name, and a tooltip will tell you what (if any) difference exists.
Uncheck/Check Added: Use the Uncheck Added button if you want only those styles with the same name to come in. Wherever possible, Civil 3D will release items in the To Be Added categories. In cases where a style is used by a setting, you will not be able to uncheck it unless you do not import settings.
Uncheck/Check Deleted: A style in the current drawing will be deleted if the source drawing does not contain a style with the same name and the style is not in use. Use the Uncheck Deleted button to prevent the style from being deleted.

The Import Styles command does not replace the best practice of starting with a proper template. Again, note that some critical items will not get transferred with this tool. As we mentioned, description key sets, unused expressions, point file settings, and predefined point groups will not import. Drawing settings and Label style defaults do not update. In addition, precision and units set in the Feature Settings dialog do not get transferred. The AutoCAD drawing units will remain unchanged, also.

To bring the items that cannot be imported, such as description keys, unused expressions, point file settings, and predefined point groups into your drawing, use the following steps:

Open the drawing containing the settings or styles you want to import.
In the same session, open the drawing needing these settings.
Switch your Toolspace tab to Settings. Make sure your view is set to Master View so thatyou can see both drawings at the same time.
Verify that the drawing needing the settings is active.
On the Settings tab, browse the source drawing for the style or setting you want to import, select the style or setting, and then drag and release it over the drawing area.

Civil 3D Templates

Importing Styles

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