Open Part of a Large Drawing (Partial Load)

If you work with large drawings, you can improve performance by opening only the view and layer geometry that you want to work with.

If you work with large drawings, you can use the Partial Open option of the OPEN command to select which view and layer geometry (graphical objects only) that you want to work with in a drawing. For example, if you load geometry from the EXTENTS view and the SITE layer, everything on the SITE layer that falls within the Extents view is loaded into the drawing.

You can only edit what is loaded into the drawing file, but all the drawing's named objects are available in the partially open drawing. Named objects include layers, views, blocks, dimension styles, text styles, viewport configurations, layouts, UCSs, and linetypes.

By organizing large drawings into sectored views, you can load and edit only what you need. For example, if you work with a city plan and need to edit only the southeast sector (sector D3 in the illustration), you can load this drawing area by specifying the predefined view. If you need to edit only the city plot numbers, you can load just the geometry on this specific layer.

After a drawing is partially open, you can load additional geometry from a view, selected area, or layer into the drawing by using PARTIALOAD. The Partial Open option is available only for drawings in AutoCAD 2004 or later format.

Procedure

To partially open a drawing

Click the Application button, and click Open Drawing.
In the Select File dialog box, select a drawing.
Click the arrow next to Open. Click Partial Open.
In the Partial Open dialog box, select a view; the default view is EXTENTS.
You can load only geometry from model space views that are saved in the current drawing.
Select one or more layers.
If you do not select a layer or layers to load, no layer geometry is loaded into the drawing but all drawing layers exist in the drawing. If no layer geometry is specified to load into the drawing, no geometry is loaded even if the geometry from a view is specified to load. If you draw objects on a layer that is not loaded, you may be drawing on top of existing geometry that is not loaded in the drawing.

NoteXref-dependent layers are displayed in the Layer Geometry to Load list only if the selected drawing was last saved with the VISRETAIN system variable set to 1. Any layers created in the xref since the xref was loaded into the drawing are not displayed in the Layer Geometry to Load list.
If the drawing contains a spatial index, you can select the Use Spatial Index option.
A spatial index is a list that organizes objects based on their location in space. A spatial index is used to locate the portion of the drawing that is read; this minimizes the time required to open the drawing.
If the drawing contains xrefs but you don't want to load them, select Unload All Xrefs on Open.
NoteIf you partially open a drawing that contains a bound xref, only the portion of the xref that is loaded (defined by the selected view) is bound to the partially open drawing.
Click Open.
You can choose to load additional information into the current drawing as long as the drawing is partially open.

To load additional geometry into a partially open drawing

Quick Reference

Commands