BIM Software Tip: How to Archive AutoCAD Files Without Losing Fonts
When receiving design drawings from other teams, many of us have encountered the frustrating issue of missing fonts upon opening the files, often accompanied by the message, “Missing one or more SHX files.”
If you choose to ignore this warning, some annotation texts may display as garbled characters or question marks. On the other hand, selecting a replacement font often results in non-standard text appearance. So, is there a way to avoid these problems—whether when requesting drawings from others or when sending your own files to other design units? The answer is definitely yes.
One very useful feature in AutoCAD that addresses this issue is called “Electronic Transmission.” This tool is designed to help you collect and organize all necessary drawing files. Here’s a quick introduction: In the upper-left corner of AutoCAD, click the application menu—the large “A” button. Then navigate to Publish > Electronic Transmission.
This feature lists all referenced drawings, as well as linked documents or tables, in a clear tree structure. But what about the font files we’re concerned about? Simply modify the settings by checking the option Include Fonts, as shown in the image below:
By using the Electronic Transmission function with the “Include Fonts” option enabled, you can package all files related to your drawing into a compressed folder or archive file without losing any fonts. Isn’t this a very practical solution?
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