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BORROW LISP: Import Layers, Blocks and Styles From a DWG

Point BORROW at any drawing or template and it lists everything that drawing contains and this one does not. Tick what you want and it is copied across. This is the answer to “that drawing has the right title block, layer standard and dimension style, and mine does not”.

What Borrow does

Nineteen kinds of thing can be borrowed: blocks, layers, linetypes, text styles, dimension styles, layouts, views, materials, viewports, page setups, user coordinate systems, groups, drawing properties, custom properties, multileader styles, multiline styles, table styles, scales and layer states.

DesignCenter can do some of it, several dialogs deep, one category at a time. Borrow does all of it from one list, and the source drawing is never opened.

Only what is missing is offered. Every list is filtered against the current drawing first, so a layer, block or style you already have does not appear. There is no way to accidentally overwrite your own definition with the source drawing’s, and no wading through hundreds of entries you already own.

Five commands. BORROW chooses a drawing and lets you pick. BORROWALL imports everything missing. BORROWTEMPLATE borrows from the QNEW template if one is set. BORROWTEMPLATES offers the templates in the template folder. BORROWLAST borrows again from the last drawing used.

How to use it

  1. Load the routine with APPLOAD, or put it on your support file search path.
  2. Type BORROW and choose the source drawing, or use one of the template commands.
  3. Work through the categories, ticking what you want. Type part of a name and press Search or Enter to jump to the first match in any category.
  4. Import. The dialog stays open and imported items disappear from the list, so several categories can be dealt with in one visit.
  5. Press Refresh if the source drawing has changed underneath you.

How it works

The source drawing is opened through ObjectDBX, a database-only interface with no editor window, no regeneration and no view. Items are moved across with CopyObjects, AutoCAD’s own mechanism for transferring database objects between documents, which brings each item’s complete definition with it.

A drawing already open in this session is read through its live document object instead — ObjectDBX on an already-open file would read the version on disk rather than the one on screen.

Three categories need special handling. Groups need their member entities copied into the matching layout first and the group created around the copies, because a group is a reference to objects and copying the group alone would copy nothing. Drawing and custom properties are values on the document rather than objects, so they are simply written across. Layer states come through AutoCAD’s own layer state function, which reads them straight from the source file.

The page setup workaround. AutoCAD has a long-standing defect: copying a page setup copies the object correctly but registers it in the plot settings dictionary under the wrong key, so the setup exists but cannot be found by name. Borrow repairs the dictionary immediately afterwards, walking it in pairs and rewriting each key from the name held on the object it points at.

Anonymous items, xref-dependent items and AutoCAD’s own internal ACAD_ entries are excluded automatically. None of them can be meaningfully imported.

Notes and limits

  • Nothing you already have can be overwritten, because nothing you already have is offered.
  • Drawing and custom properties are compared by value, not by existence, so a property that differs is offered even though it exists at both ends.
  • The last drawing borrowed from is remembered between sessions, both as the starting folder and for BORROWLAST.
  • BORROWALL imports everything missing. On an unfamiliar source drawing that can be a great deal — use the picking list unless you know what is in there.

Download and details

NameBorrow — import anything from another drawing or template
DownloadBorrow.lsp — 53.1 KB, plain AutoLISP source. Downloads directly; no zip to unpack.
TypeAutoCAD AutoLISP routine
CommandsBORROW, BORROWALL, BORROWLAST, BORROWTEMPLATE, BORROWTEMPLATES
Requiresthe ActiveX layer (loaded automatically by the routine with vl-load-com); nothing extra — the dialog is written to a temporary file at run time and deleted again, so there is no .dcl to install.
Source size53.1 KB, 1,205 lines
Error handlingYes — a *error* handler restores every system variable it changed, on cancel as well as on error.
UndoNot needed — this routine only reads the drawing and changes nothing.
CompatibilityAutoCAD (any release with AutoLISP), BricsCAD, ZWCAD, GstarCAD, ProgeCAD and other IntelliCAD-based platforms. AutoCAD LT needs a LISP enabler. No .NET, no ObjectARX, no installer.
AuthorYZ, August 2026
LicenceFree to use, supplied “as is” with no warranty.

References