With AutoCAD WS, you can share your drawings online with colleagues and clients.You can share a drawing with anyone, regardless of whether or not they have CAD software or DWG viewers installed on their computer.

To share a drawing in AutoCAD WS, you simply grant access to your drawing to a colleague or client. They will receive from you an email with a link to your online drawing—no more need to email large files as attachments. You set the permission controls that enable people to view, edit, or download the drawing. No one can access your drawing unless you invite them to. AutoCAD WS also supports the  fonts, Xrefs and plot styles that go with your drawings, so that your collaborators can see your drawings just as you intend, without the need to track down missing files.

You can also invite design team members to meet online to review and edit drawings in a real-time collaboration session, simply by viewing a shared drawing simultaneously from respective web browsers or mobile device.

How to share a drawing?

Open a drawing in AutoCAD WS
Select a file from withing Drawings and click “Open.” Your drawing will open in the AutoCAD WS Editor.

Click “Share”
The “Share” button is located on the right-bottom corner of the screen. If you click it, the Share dialog will appear.

Extra: You can also access the Share dialog from the Share tab in the ribbon and clicking the Share button.

Choose a recipient
In the “To” field, enter the e-mail address of the person with whom you want to share the drawing.

You can enter one or more addresses if you want to share a drawing with several people at once.

Optional: Protect your drawing with permissions
The default permissions allow your collaborators to edit and download your drawing:

• Edit: Removing Edit permissions will allow your collaborator only to view the drawing and draw basic markups. The collaborator will not be able to edit any of the objects.
• Download: Removing Download permissions will block your collaborator’s ability to create a copy of your drawing in their account or to download the DWG file to their computer.

To change the permissions, click on the lock icon in the Share window to open the Permissions dialog—a click on each permission check-box would toggle it on and off.

You can change  permissions at any time from within the Share tab in the ribbon; your new permissions will be in effect immediately.

Optional: Share only a certain area of the drawing
You can crop the drawing if you want your collaborators to focus on a certain part of your drawing. To do that, apply a crop to your drawing, click “Share”, and you’re done.

Sharing multiple drawings
You can share multiple drawings in a single invitation. From within Drawings, select the drawings (or files) you want to share, and click on the Share button.

Sharing files other than drawings
You can share any file you want, not just drawings. You can import a PDF, a raster image, a ZIP file or any supported file type. Sharing it in AutoCAD WS allows your collaborators to download it. That saves you the need to maintain an FTP server or an account at a file hosting service.

Starting real-time collaboration

A real-time collaboration session initiates when two or more users view a shared drawing simultaneously from respective web browsers or mobile devices. A real-time collaboration session can include two or more users, sharing the exact same view. This means that when one user pans the view to the left, the other participants will see that pan. The same is true for zoom, layers, layouts, plot styles, and more. You can also use the Chat feature to communicate with participants as you collaborate online. During the session you even see the other participants’ mouse pointers, and every modification made to the drawing is shown live to the other participants.

To start real-time collaboration, simply have your collaborators enter the drawing while you’re in it as well—after you’ve shared your drawing with them.

How to share a folder?

Sharing a folder in AutoCAD WS makes it easy to share multiple files with the same group of people. The content of a shared folder will always be synchronized between the collaborators of that share, making updating and adding projects very simple in the office. In other words, you can share folders in AutoCAD WS as a substitute to using an FTP server.

Don’t have a folder to share? Create one
From within Drawings, click on “New Folder”. This will create a new folder, which you will be asked to name.

Enter a descriptive name, such as “Stadium site” or “Overseas projects”. This name will be shown to all collaborators of the folder. You can always change the name later.

Note: You can share a folder within a folder.

Put files in the folder
You can move files into the folder by dragging.

You can also import files straight into the folder. Simple double-click on the folder to open, and then import the files you want by clicking on “Import File” command on the toolbar.

Share the folder
To share a folder, select the folder you want to share, and click the “Share” button on the toolbar.

Sharing files and folders with AutoCAD WS can be very useful, especially if you are working with multiple DWGs on projects, and you collaborate with people in multiple locations. Allowing others to share documents and drawings from AutoCAD WS reduces your dependence on FTP servers or file hosting services, and offers the following additional benefits:

• Your recipients don’t need to set up an account or install or maintain specialized CAD or DWG viewing software to review and edit your drawing—they simply get an email invitation from you with a link to your drawing.
• Your colleagues can view or edit your DWG drawings online, without the need to download and store copies of the drawing on their own systems
• You can share individual files or entire folders, making it easier to share project-related documents and drawings in the office or with stakeholders.
• You can upload and share many types of project-related files to AutoCAD WS, and there is no storage limit.
• Managing permissions is AutoCAD WS is easy and fast.
• You can revoke any permissions you have granted at any time, protecting your data.

After sharing a drawing

Notifications of changes
Whenever one of your collaborators makes a modification to a drawing of yours, you will be able to see that in the Messages section.

Remove share
To revoke people’s access to your drawings, go to the Share tab in the ribbon in the editor. Click on the person’s name from the drop-down list of options, and select “Remove Share”.

From that moment, that person will no longer be able to access your drawing, and the drawing will not appear in their AutoCAD WS Drawings folder. You do not need to save the drawing; the new permission controls are effective immediately.

Extra: You can remove all shares at once. To make your drawing completely private, go to the Drawings section in AutoCAD WS and find the drawing you’re looking for. Right-click the drawing and select “Remove shares”.

Change permissions
You can  change permissions at any time.

Go to the Share tab in the ribbon in the Editor. Click on the person’s name from the drop-down list of options, and select the new permission settings by clicking on the ”√” or “X” symbol to toggle the permission setting from on to off.

You do not need to save the drawing; the new permission settings are effective immediately.