Transferring drawings containing XRefs is not as easy as sending the main host file. You need to send the host file as well as its dependent XRefs with the same folder structure as the main drawing. Doing this manually is time-consuming and prone to error, but we can use eTransmit to do this quickly and with lots of other customizations too.

In the following example, we will learn how to create the eTransmit package for the drawing we have created so far with multiple attached XRefs:

1. Open the main XRef host drawing and then activate the eTransmit command using the application button in the top left of the AutoCAD window, as shown in Figure 9.23, or use the ETRANSMIT command:

2. The Create Transmittal window will now open with a list of all the External Referencess included in the current drawing, as shown in block A of Figure 9.26:

3. If you want to add more files to the final eTransmit package, then click the Add File button underneath block A of Figure 9.26. To change the settings of this eTransmit package, click the Transmittal Setups button, as shown in Block B of Figure 9.26.
4. Click the Modify button in the next window, and the Modify Transmittal Setup window will open with lots of options, as shown in Figure 9.27:

5. In the first panel, Transmittal type and location, click the Transmittal package type drop-down menu and select Zip (*.zip)  from the list. You can also select a folder if you want to send all the XRef files to a folder.
6. The next drop-down menu is for the file format, and in this menu you can select the format in which you want to save the XRef files. This feature is great if you want to send the XRef to people who are working with older versions of AutoCAD. From this list, select the AutoCAD 2013 file format for our example.
7. The next field is the Transmittal file folder, and this is basically the location where your transmittal file will be saved. For our example, I have selected the desktop as the location of the transmittal file.

8. The next panel, Path options, has three options for controlling the folder structure of the transmittal package. The first option, Use organized folder structure, will keep the relative path folder structure, and if you are not sure which folder structure to use, this is the best option you can use by default.
9. The second option will place all the XRef files in the root folder, which is like no path option of XRef, and the last option, Keep files and folders as is, will keep the original folder structure in which you saved the XRef. For our example, I will select the first option.
10. The next panel, Actions, has options for converting the XRef into blocks using the Bind external references option, and you can use Bind or Insert for the converted XRef. The Purge drawings checkbox will clean all the XRef drawings of unused named objects such as layers or blocks. You can keep the Purge drawings option checked if you want to clean unused named objects from the XRefs.
11. The last panel, Include Options, has options that let you include or exclude some common objects, such as fonts, textures, and data links. If you have used custom fonts in the host drawing or XRef, then it is recommended to keep the Include fonts option checked. If you have used other objects too, then keep their respective checkboxes selected as well.
12. After setting all of these settings, click OK and then click Close in the Transmittal Setups window. Then, click OK again in the Create Transmittal window.
13. Specify the name of the transmittal package from the next window and click the Save button. AutoCAD will take a moment to create the transmittal package, and you will have the eTransmit file with all the XRefs, fonts, and other files inside a single zip file or folder.

Now that you have all the XRef files collected at a single location, you can easily send it via email, FTP, or any other method, and you can be sure that this XRef package contains all the files required for the project.

Now that we are done with XRefs, let's move on to another interesting topic, which is dynamic blocks. We have already seen blocks in action in previous chapters, and in the next section we will learn about dynamic blocks, which are a flexible type of block that can be modified even after being adding to a drawing. You can add different types of geometrical properties to these blocks.