Expert: J. B. Borge - 9/13/2005

Question
I am working on a drawing that was created by someone else with a newer version of AutoCAD, but saved in ACAD2000 filetype so that I can work on it.
It is full of proxy objects, which are a pain in the butt.  I don't know what they are or why they were used, but I cannot move or copy them without exploding them first, and then they take on the layername of the layer that was current when they were exploded!
Anyway, I must have done something wrong because now I cannot see any of the doors on the floor plan that were clearly visible yesterday.  They are all on the same layer, and I know that they are there.  I just cannot see them and all the layers are on and thawed.  The only door I can see is one that I exploded yesterday and put back on the Door layer.  I can see it just fine.    
I tried opening the original file and using the edit command to copy with base point.  But when I past the doors into my drawing worksheet, none of them are visible!  I know they are there, but I just can't see them.  
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you and kind regards,
James  

Answer
James,

The way proxy object works is that, some objects in the drawing were initially generated by either one of Autodesk's Architectural Desktop, Building Systems, or some add-in package. This could either be a door, window, or wall entities w/ supplemental datas that help aid the mentioned software run w/ special features.  Unfortunately, you don't have these softwares to further the design process, but any basic Autocad package will try to represent these entities (proxy objects) as regular lines, arcs, etc. as acurately as possible.
There are several solutions to fix the problem. But first, if you haven't yet, try exploding the drawing you recieved, purge out any unrefererence entities, and run an audit to fix any discrepancies in the autocad database. If still having issues, export the same drawing to dxf (2000 version) to further srip excess heave files in the autocad database. Open the dxf file, copy and paste the objects you want to integrate in your plans. Hope this helps, let me know.

-Regards
JB