
Note: The amount of data in a drawing (used and unused), object types, and complexity all attribute to the size of a DWG file. Some drawings may not reduce very much in size while others may show a significant change.
Polylines are better optimized and considered as lightweight. 2D Polylines are old-format Polylines which store their vertex information inefficiently compared to the normal Polylines. All unnecessary metadata is stripped too.
Use CONVERTPOLY if the drawing has many 2D polylines and convert them to normal polylines. By reducing the number of colors, 24-bit PNG files can be converted to much smaller 8-bit indexed color images. Use EXPORTLAYOUT to save layouts to new model space drawings. Child drawings can then be loaded/unloaded from the parent drawing as needed. Divide a large drawing into multiple smaller drawings and then attach them into a master drawing (see About Attaching and Detaching Referenced Drawings (Xrefs)). Use the JOIN command to combine small line segments. Use the BLOCK command to combine and replace repeating objects or groups of line segments. Use the WBLOCK command to resave parts or the entire drawing (see Export objects to a drawing file with WBLOCK command). Use SAVEAS to save a new file or save overtop of the original. Enter the FILTERS command and delete layer filters. Enter the -SCALELISTEDIT command and reset the scale list. Enter the PURGE command and select all options. Enter the -PURGE command and choose Regapps.
Select all objects in a drawing and enter the OVERKILL command.Detach all unneeded xref files using the XREF command.Solution: Use the following commands to reduce the size of a DWG file.