Merging Drawings

After you have created a DWP drawing patch, you can import or merge into another drawing.

If you and someone else have been working on the same drawing, you can create a patch of your changes. Afterwards you open their drawing and import the patch.

From AutoCAD, entities and tables are merged. If you merge from History, the full drawing database is merged. Merging requires related drawings with changes that do not conflict.

To import a drawing patch in AutoCAD

See Getting Started. Importing a DWP Drawing patch does not require a common version history.

To merge a drawing patch in AutoCAD

Merging a patch in AutoCAD supports both updating existing entities and adding new entities. Custom objects are ignored.

Start AutoCAD and do one of the following:
- In the Drawing Sync panel, click the down-arrow under Import and select Merge.
- Enter DSMERGE in the Command line.
Select a DWP drawing patch file. Merge options are available in the Command line.

MERGE COMMAND
Press Enter to Merge.
Optional: Regenall and Zoom extents to refresh the display.

Merge Options:

Import - Adds tables and entities. Similar to DXIMPORT.
Merge - Updates, deletes, and appends tables and entities.
Update - Update only.
Delete - Deletes only. If the Select option is specified, entities are not deleted.
Entities - Specifies entites only. Tables are ignored.
dryRun - A Dry run reads the patch without making changes to the drawing. This allows you to preview changes.
Select - Turns selection on. After the merge, modified entites are available as the previous selection.

To merge drawings in History

In history, you select three files and indicate a base drawing, a patch drawing, and a merge drawing. A best practice is to choose the patch for your drawing and the merge for their drawing.

You then create patch files and compare them for conflicts. If none are found, you can merge.

Drawings that have been updated in different versions of AutoCAD or different toolsets are likely to contain conflicting changes. If complex changes have been made to both drawings, conflicts are very likely.
As a rule, merging is possible if at least one of the drawings has made simple changes to the base drawing.

Select the conflicting file in the History window.
Under File History, select the base version. This drawing is the common ancestor.
In the drop-down box, choose B - Base.
Select your version and choose P - Patch.
Select their version and choose M - Merge

FILE HISTORY WITH BASE, PATCH, MERGE
Click Patch. Two patch files are created. If both have a status:success you can continue.
Click Merge.

If Validate is selected, merging validates the drawing database but does save a file. Clear Validate if you want to save a file. Overwritten drawings are sent to the recycle bin.

Checking conflicts creates a merge-patch with a status such as:

; status:conflicts conflicts(x) 2 matching(=) 1

If hard conflicts exist, the merge will not continue. Conflicts are commented out of the patch. Conflict codes:

x - Conflict. The same object is modified differently. Hard conflict.
= - Identical change. No conflict.
$ - Sysvar. Soft conflict.
^ - Properties including layer, linetype, lineweight, color, transparency. Soft conflict.
v - View. Soft conflict.
t - Table. Soft conflict.
f - Field. Soft conflict.

An incompatible status exists if a hard conflicts indicate different object types. Drawings with unrelated version histories are incompatible.

$TDINDWG 40 0.2380451158 (+++ 0.000636574 0.237409 4ddf1) (0.236841412)

Time spent in spent in the patch is added to the merge drawing. This can be useful for billing.

To merge drawings manually

If you need to merge drawing conflicts, but don't have the drawings in History, you can do so manually.

Before starting this procedure, three drawing files are required. Put them in the same folder named to identify their relationship:

Elevation-NORTH-base.dwg - common ancestor of both mine and theirs
Elevation-NORTH-mine.dwg - my changes
Elevation-NORTH-theirs.dwg - remote changes. Resolved from keep theirs

Next you create two patch files and check for conflicts. If there are no hard conflicts, you can merge.

Start the Drawing Sync desktop app.
In the Drawing pane, click Open and select my file Elevation-NORTH-mine.dwg.
In the Exchange panel, click Patch and select the base file Elevation-NORTH-base.dwg.

MY CHANGES PATCH
In the Drawing pane, click Open and select their file Elevation-NORTH-theirs.dwg.
In the Exchange panel, click Patch and select the base file again.

THEIR CHANGES PATCH
Save both patch files to create Elevation-NORTH-mine.dwp and Elevation-NORTH-theirs.dwp.
Select my dwp in the file tab which makes Elevation-NORTH-mine.dwp the active document.
In the Patch tab, click Conflict. Click Yes to confirm and browse to select their patch Elevation-NORTH-theirs.dwp. Checking conflicts creates a merge-patch.
If there are no hard conflicts, click Merge to create a database snapshot.

You can also click Merge DWG to write the file indicated by (drawing) in the merge-patch.