Hi,
Another newbie question. Sometimes, but not all of the time, when I go to copy a block (or a cell I guess its called in microstation) from one drawing to a different drawing it disappears after I accept the placement.
So for example I have a cell for a normally open relay contact. I want to steal it from another drawing, so select it from that drawing, control-C to copy to clipboard, go to the new drawing, control V to paste it into the drawing.
So far so good, I can see it and it moves around as I decide where to insert the pasted object. Then I make my selection and, Poof, its gone. However I have discovered that if I first drop the cell to geometry before pasting it, then it always works fine. But I really dont want to drop big complex cells to geometry, it effectively breaks them in my opinion.
I tried an experiment where I created a new blank drawing from the default 2D seed file. I then tried pasting various blocks into that new blank drawing. I discovered that certain ones will paste in fine and others will promptly disappear unless dropped to geometry first.
I have verified its not pasting into a level that is turned off.
So what is causing this odd behavior? How can I make paste work without dropping the object? And why does it only disappear some times but not others?
Depending on the type of cell and the way the cell is created the cell may either take on the Active model properties or the properties of the cell when created. You may be placing the cell and the level is turned off, not displaying the cell. You later turn on a level and find the cell has been placed multiple times. I believe this is why when you drop the cell you now see the cell. By dropping the cell it is being placed on the active level. In this case the original cell would need to be modified to work differently or you have to drop the cell. I agree with everyone else Copy/Paste is not the recommended way. We recommend referencing the file to copy.