Collaboration, Standards, and Drawing Management
Standards
A CAD standards file (.dws) stores approved layers, dimension styles, text styles, linetypes and lineweights. CHECKSTANDARDS compares the current drawing and offers Fix or Ignore for each violation, and the Standards tab at DWS creation decides which categories are audited. LAYTRANS maps non-standard layer names onto approved ones and can translate a whole set of drawings. Standards checking is a discipline: fix violations before issue, not afterwards.
Sharing drawings
ETRANSMIT builds a package with the drawing, its xrefs, fonts, plot style tables and images, and can bind xrefs, purge unused symbols and save to an earlier DWG version. Reference paths matter more than anything else: relative paths survive a folder copy, absolute paths break when the project moves. The Reference Manager resolves paths in bulk across a set of files.
Drawing management
Sheet Set Manager groups layouts into a set, publishes and eTransmits the whole set, and supplies fields for sheet numbers and titles so title blocks update automatically. DWGPROPS custom properties feed those fields. DWGCOMPARE highlights changes between two revisions, while AUDIT, RECOVER and drawing recovery handle damaged files.
Worked example
A consultant reports missing xrefs and fonts. Run ETRANSMIT, tick Include Fonts, bind the xrefs or keep them separate with confirmed relative paths, include the .ctb plot style table, and save to the client's AutoCAD version. Sending the bare .dwg is what produces the support call.
Traps
Assuming eTransmit includes fonts by default; binding xrefs and colliding layer names; editing a drawing after the transmittal was created; relying on absolute paths across a network drive-letter change.