Opening and saving a file

Opening and saving a file

Goal: open a project from a file and keep your changes.

When you need this

You start the day with yesterday's project, you get a file from a colleague or from another package, or you want to capture an interim state before you change something big. What the app keeps in a file, and why only IFC keeps your whole project, is explained in Files and formats.

Steps

Opening a file

1. Choose Home › File › Open, or File › Open, or press Ctrl+O (⌘+O on a Mac). The File group is also on the Table tab.
2. Choose the file. You open one file at a time. On the desktop and in browsers with file access, such as Chrome and Edge, the window shows a list of file types: All Supported, IFC Files, CSV Files, XML Files, MS Project Files and Primavera XER Files.
3. The project opens in a new tab. If the current tab was still empty and unchanged, the project opens in it.
4. If the file was not IFC, a window appears with a short explanation of that format. A green block says what the app took over, an amber block what was not included or only partly, and a blue block how saving and writing back work. Read more opens the guide for that format. Click Got it to close the window. First tick Don't show again for … if you no longer want to see this explanation for that format. You turn it back on in App settings, on the Advanced tab.

An IFC file gives its file name to the tab. A project from another format gets its project name.

The app opens .ifc, .csv, .xml (MS Project XML or Primavera P6 XML), .mpp and .xer. For the last two there are separate steps in Opening an MS Project file (.mpp) and Opening a Primavera P6 file (.xer).

Opening a recent project

Choose Home › File › Recent and click a file in the list, or choose File › Recent. The list keeps the last ten files that you opened, saved or exported. Here too, a file that is not IFC is followed by the explanation of its format. The desktop app shows the path for each file, a browser only the name.

If the app can no longer read a file in the list, for example because you moved it, it disappears from the list without a message. In browsers without file access, such as Firefox, Recent stays empty.

Opening an example

Choose File › Examples and click an example project. It opens in a tab, without a file: Save therefore asks where you want to keep it.

Saving

Choose Home › File › Save or File › Save, or press Ctrl+S. What happens then depends on your project:

1. If the project already has a file, because you opened an IFC file or saved it before, the app writes to that file. No window appears, except at the first save of a file with an IFC schema other than IFC 4.3 ADD2. Then the app first asks Which IFC schema to save in? See Choosing the IFC schema.
2. If the project has no file yet, the app asks where it should go. It suggests the project name with .ifc. After that, that file is the project's file.
3. If your browser only saves through a download (such as Firefox), the file lands in your downloads folder, and every save creates a new download. The first time in a session you see the message Saved as a download: 'name.ifc' is in your downloads folder. This browser does not let the app write to a place of its own, so every save creates a new download. In Chrome, Edge or the desktop app, Save simply updates the same file.
4. If your browser cannot write back to the project's file, the app asks again where to put the file every time you save. That looks like Save As, but it is a limit of the browser. The first time in a session the message This browser does not let the app write back to 'name.ifc'. explains this, with a link to Files.

After saving, the Unsaved marker disappears: the dot on the tab, the asterisk before the project name at the top and the text Unsaved at the bottom right of the status bar.

Saving under another name

Choose Home › File › Save As or File › Save As, or press Ctrl+Shift+S. Choose a name and a place (in Firefox the app downloads a new file instead). After that the project works with this new file: the next Save writes there. The old file stays as it was the last time you saved.

Closing a project

Click the cross on the tab, or choose File › Close project. If the project has changes that you did not save, the app asks: Unsaved changes: 'name' has changes that haven't been saved yet. You choose Cancel (the project stays open), Don't save (the project closes and your changes are gone) or Save (save first, then close). If you close the whole app on the desktop (with the close button, Alt+F4 or your operating system's menu), it asks this for every project with changes; Cancel, or a save that fails, stops the closing. After such a normal close the app cleans up the recovery copies of that session, so the recovery window only appears after a real crash. If a project has changes and you close the browser tab or window, the browser asks for confirmation.

Pitfalls and what the app does then

An opened IFC file is immediately your project's file. Save overwrites that file, even if it comes from another program. If you want to keep the original, choose Save As first.

Other formats are never overwritten. A .csv, .xml, .mpp or .xer has no file after opening. Save writes a new IFC file and leaves the original alone.

In Firefox every save makes a new file. The app cannot write into your file there. It downloads a new file each time, with the project name as file name and not the name of the file you opened.

Chrome and Edge ask for permission. At the first Save of a file you opened, the browser asks whether the app may write to it. If you refuse, the app opens a window in which you choose a new file. In Chrome and Edge you also get that window if writing to the existing file fails, for example because the file disappeared or is locked.

A message about duplicate ids or relations that do not count. After opening, a message can stay on screen. If it says Objects with a duplicate id in this file, each duplicate object got its own id and references point to the first occurrence. Check relations and assignments then. If it says relation(s) could not be included in the calculation, the relation sat on a summary task and has no effect, for example a task linked to its own summary. The file itself stays unchanged. See Relations for what a relation on a summary task does.

Saving can fail. If the saving itself gives an error, the app reports Failed to save, with the reason. Your project stays open and is still marked Unsaved.

See also

• Files and formats: what is in an IFC file and how the app treats formats.
• Turning on AutoSave: letting the app update your file itself.
• Choosing the IFC schema: what the question Which IFC schema to save in? means.
• Exporting: making a copy in another format.
• Recovering after a crash: what you do if the app did not close cleanly.
• Import and export formats: per format what is carried over and what is not.