About Exporting a Layout to Model Space in a New Drawing

You can export all visible objects from the current layout to model space in a new drawing.

You can export all visible objects from the current layout to the model space with the EXPORTLAYOUT command. Objects that are outside the boundaries of “paper” in the layout are also exported.

Some objects are not exported to the model space drawing. The objects are

• Objects on layers that are turned off or frozen
• Objects in Model space that are not visible in a layout viewport
• Named views
• Materials
• Cameras
• Lights

Changes to Exported Objects

When exported, some objects become a different object type, or are modified in order to maximize the visual fidelity of the layout.

Object Type	Representation in Exported Drawing
Dimensions	Dimensions that exceed the boundaries of the layout viewport are exploded.
Constraints	Dimensional constraints are removed.
Standard or dynamic block (with or without attributes)	Standard or dynamic blocks, with or without attributes, that exceed the boundaries of the layout viewport will be converted to a new, anonymous block. Attributes are converted to text objects in the block. Note: The “Allow Exploding” setting (a setting on the block definition) is ignored if the block exceeds the boundaries of the layout viewport.
Annotative objects	Objects become non-annotative.
External reference (xref)	An xref with nested objects that exceed the boundaries of the layout viewport is converted to a block reference and exploded.
Layout viewport	Layout viewports are represented either by a polyline or the clipped viewport object.
Custom objects	Custom objects are exploded and converted to anonymous blocks.
Xref clipped with the XCLIP command	Xrefs clipped with the XCLIP command are converted to a clipped block reference.
Visual Styles	The 2D wireframe visual style is used.
Perspective viewports	Objects in a viewport with Perspective turned on will change to a parallel projection.

Note: Objects that can be trimmed without changing their object types are not listed in the table.

Visual Changes to Objects

Not all objects displayed in a layout will display identically in the Model tab of the exported drawing. This includes the following cases:

• The same object displayed in multiple viewports becomes multiple objects in the exported drawing. In addition, objects are transformed and often scaled. These changes can affect data extraction of blocks.
• Some objects are converted or exploded before being trimmed.
• Layout viewports can each have a different visual style; only a single visual style can be used in model space.
• Polylines with a non-zero width that are clipped by the layout viewport boundary might not be accurately trimmed in the exported drawing.