I can only think that your pointing device may be at fault. Check your settings. You may have it at "hover/select". This would result in potentially selecting and dragging accidentally.

@dave r said: Have you tried linking to the original SKP file which is probably not in the private/var folder? If you go to the private/var folder can you open the SKP file? Or copy it to documents or someplace and open it? Move the SKP file and try relinking to it in that location. I did try this, and it didn't seem to work. I ended up asking SketchUp support, who responded with the following: @unknownuser said: A. I recommend against saving the SketchUp file to a Dropbox folder. I've had a couple of complaints from customers whose files behave strangely when saving to a cloud-synced folder. See if he has the same problem while saving the SketchUp file to the Desktop then try to relink again. B. Many, many SketchUp and LayOut problems are the result of disk permissions issues. To repair disk permissions, try these steps: Restart your computer. Open a Finder window. Click Applications. Click Utilities. Double-click Disk Utility. Select your hard drive. Select the First Aid tab. Click Repair Disk Permissions. Please repeat step eight until you no longer see new errors during the repair. After the permissions are repaired, exit Disk Utility. C. Reset LayOut's preferences file: Open a Finder window. Click "Go" in the top menu bar and select "Go to Folder..." Copy and paste the following path into the text box in Finder: ~/Library/Application Support/SketchUp 2013/LayOut Click once on the file called "preferences.xml" then press the Return key on your keyboard. This will allow you to change the file name. Change the name from "preferences.xml" to "preferences-old.xml" Open LayOut and try relinking again. Following both points A and B worked for me. It's a shame that Dropbox and Layout are not working well together. To be precise, if you have the LayOut file in Dropbox, you get the problem I have. If you have the LayOut file on your desktop, for example, it works, even if you are referencing a Sketchup file within Dropbox. In conclusion, do not store your LO files in Dropbox - it may mess things up. I would be interested to see if this is a problem on PCs. I am waiting for the day that LayOut files reference Sketchup files using relative paths!

You could also simply create a "screen" on the same layer as your furniture. Simply draw a rectangle the full extents of the drawing, with no bounding edge and a transparent fill in white. Arrange your furniture within the layer to back. Set the entire layer to be below your symbols.

well guys this is a project that im working right now,this is the base idea of the projects.

I am having the same problem inserting rtf files - they look fine in Wordpad but are scrambled in Layout - I tried all the tricks mentioned above in this thread to no avail - I also tried your suggestion to "drag and drop" the rtf file into Layout but it does not work for me. When I double click on the table, it straightens up but then goes back to scrambled?? Any suggestions or work arounds? again, I tried all above and confused!! Thanks

I'm not finding anything you guys have in Word on a Mac (insert button with link submenu?) If I choose insert file and pick a box in the open dialog "insert as link" I get an error not valid file name.... Anyway is LO reference supposed to be able to update when you update the Excel this way (rtf)? or do you also have to do something with the rtf file? I use an alternate method myself. I update the excel then print to pdf, Iinsert pdf to LO. Later if I change the excel file, I print to pdf and over-write the same pdf file The LO file can then update ther reference. Is this more steps?? If you use macs the print to pdf will use the excel name so you don't even have to worry about the name--if you are in the right folder. Regarding OP I think the missing step is using ruby to export the information about his DC to the csv file. Just guessing.

Now I have seen it! Thats great! thanks Dave and Timinder for raising the question.

I'm sorry for my criptic answer. I don't usually give those. The fact is that if you use texts in sketchup and then rotate the viewport, texts will also rotate and you'll probably be annoyed with the result. So for good results what you should do is not rotate the viewport in layout but, do it in Sketchup. There's a lot of ways of doing it. One of the most effective is by using a plugin from Thomthom called camera tools. For your last question, that rotation handle on Layout doesn't infere to any angle... I hope I've helped this time, best regards, JQL

Fills can be exported as solid hatches as you would see in Vector rendering. You can export shadows and textures in Hybrid mode for dwg/dxf. Layout generates vector lines over the images. If you have multiple viewports on top of each other you have to be sure your cad program can handle png transparency or you'll get images on top of each other and you won't understand what's happening. When you send the autocad file to someone else you have to include the image folder, or images on the same folder as DWG. Hope this helps, JQL

Thanks guys... I'll let you know how it turns out.

@jamexcel said: Is there a solution to this problem in Sketchup 2013; or maybe the question is how does one load the Aspect-Ratio-Script in SU-2013? Copy the downloaded .rb file to the Plugins folder. You'll need to do it manually and before doing so, make sure you have full permissions established for the folder. @jamexcel said: The only extensions that SU2013 sees end in RBZ. That's actually not true. RBZ files are only ZIP files with the extension changed so the Install Extension function can detect them.

@arcad-uk said: <RANT>But be prepared to loose your customising next time LO gets an upgrade</RANT> <RANT> That drives me mental every upgrade <RANT>!!!

Hush your mouth... If my mother reads this thread she'll want me to work faster. Shhhh.

As Dave said in 2. but you can change the scene to vector and explode it into LO entities.

From what I understand NO layout doesn't embed fonts - and YES Andrew this IS an issue for the future! It would also be great IF LO had the option to turn text into outlines so these could be hand edited or kerned. Daves trick of opening the PDF, check embed all fonts and save, is probably your best option!

LO is a bugger like that!!! Indesign, illustrator and photoshop have this function right. My suggestion is that you drag all your standard text boxes to a LO document and export a PNG file at high res and then drag this back in and use a clipping mask for chuck it up! That way they will scale! PAIN in the butt though!

@ashscott said: In case anyone else is struggling with this, you can access the .layout files that are found in scrapbooks on a windows machine through the following directory: C:/ProgramData/SketchUp/SketchUp 2013/LayOut/Scrapbooks Note that in a windows folder you need to unhide hidden files by clicking tools>folder options>view> and checking "Show hidden folders, files and drives" Thanks for this one. I really was confused for a long time as to where should I find this. I guess folder hidden was the mistake from my part.

Don't know what you're saying,Richard,but I'll see if I can do that too.

Very nice!

There shouldn't be any "hidden styles" in your model. You should be able to see any styles in the In Model styles library. But just to be sure, open some of the components individually and take a look. If you are getting components from other sources, it is best to check them out carefully before using them. This would be especially true with components from the 3D Warehouse.