Jim McSwain of Toone, Tennessee, asked for a program to convert some old drawing and DXF files to a format that has an 80% zoom and a thumbnail preview. Many of his old drawings are standard parts that have been saved under old versions of AutoCAD, and he cannot see a thumbnail preview because the zooming was set poorly or there is no preview at all.

The AutoLISP Solution is ZOOM-SAVE.LSP and ZOOM-SAVE.DCL, which opens any number of selected DWG or DXF files and automatically zooms them to 80% of the extents of the drawing before saving with a preview.

Get the Code!
Download the ZOOM-SAVE.LSP and ZOOM-SAVE.DCL files from Cadalyst's Get the Code! library (May 2008) and save them in AutoCAD's Support directory. Use the Appload facility by selecting Tools / Load Application, then use the browser to select ZOOM-SAVE.LSP.

How to Use the ZOOM-SAVE.LSP Code
To start the program, enter ZS, and you will see the Zoom-Save dialog box.
You can select the file type to display using the DWG and DXF radio buttons. Select the drive and the directory to see a list of files in the right-hand half of the dialog box. To select files, use the standard Microsoft Windows selection procedures: Click on any file to select a single file; use the shift key to select a group of files; and hold down the Ctrl key and click to select arbitrary files.