AutoCAD Tip – Who has my AutoCAD drawing?

By Dennis Collin

A common problem when working with AutoCAD, especially when working in different offices or remotely, is when a drawing needs to be edited but when the file is opened AutoCAD reports that the file is in use and is read-only!

A message like the following is displayed,

To find out if the drawing is being edited, who is doing the work and on what workstation, there is an AutoCAD command we can use to find out precisely that.

It is called the WHOHAS command. Type it in on the command prompt and browse to the file that needs to be edited. Once selected, a message will appear with the relevant information providing the user some information on who they need to contact to release the file. Often it is simply open just for checking or printing. This can save a lot of unnecessary frustration, emails and or phone calls trying to get work done, and this feature is often missed or forgotten about by even more experienced AutoCAD users.