AutoCAD 2020 – Redesigned Purge Feature

By John Flanagan

Easily Clean Drawings With Redesigned Purge

The Purge feature has been redesigned for easier drawing clean-up and to make it clear why some objects can’t be purged. Selecting categories and individual objects is easier with the added check boxes. Notice that zero length geometry and empty text objects can now be purged separately. Autodesk has added a preview area where you can view a highlighted object and the area is resizable for easier viewing.

Autodesk has also added a find Non-Purgeable Items button for easier viewing of the items that can’t be purged from the drawing. You can now see object relationships within your drawing. To find out why an item cannot be purged simply click on Non-Purgeable Items button. In this example, I’ll expand layers and select the doors layer.

In the Possible Reasons area you can see general information explaining why the layer can’t be purged, such as the layer is being used. In the Details area there’s information specific to the objects on the doors layer. To find the objects in the drawing click on the select Objects icon. This closes the Purge dialogue box and selects the objects in the drawing as shown below.

From here you can make further changes as needed, such as moving the selected objects to another layer.