ConDoc drawings do not show up in Scrapbook

[[email protected]]

I’m having trouble with the transfer of scenes generated in my Sketchup project file to show up in the Scrapbook section of layout.  I feel like I’m missing a step even though I’m following steps in the video.

Here’s a list of possible issues:

1. My computer is super slow after adding in the terrain and I’m getting messages about switching to a different default GPU (have not done that yet). IT takes about 5 minutes to send the file to Layout but it does seem to eventually.

2. Once I open a file in Layout, the Sketchup file shows up in references (and I can update it there) but in the Model tab it will not allow me to link or update and it appears there is no link established.

3. Do I need to import the file into the drawing as well as send it to Layout?

4. I can see the other ConDoc tools in scrapbooks-ConDoc 2D, etc but the ConDoc Drawings tab is not there.

Overall, I’m not understanding the difference between the ConDoc way of dragging and dropping the layered scenes versus the way I was doing it before (setting the scenes in the model tray above, no use of scrapbooks)

[Mike Brightman]

Hello Holly,

Sorry to hear you are hitting some snags.

For issue number one, it is definitely possible that your computer is underpowered or struggling with the size of the model. Five minutes is longer than I would expect, even on a slower machine.

That said, even a very powerful computer can slow down if the SketchUp model is heavy.

One thing to watch closely is tagging.

If objects are not tagged properly, they can end up showing in every viewport that ConDoc sends to LayOut. For example, if terrain is left on Untagged instead of being assigned to a Terrain tag, it may appear in every single viewport, section, elevation, and detail. That creates a huge amount of extra processing and can slow everything down dramatically.

In my experience, about 95% of the issues users run into come back to tagging.

Make sure your terrain, entourage, furniture, context, and other major model elements are all tagged correctly before generating drawings.

For issues two and three, it sounds like the SketchUp file is making it into LayOut correctly since you can see it in References.

You do not need to import the SketchUp model separately.

The whole point of the ConDoc workflow is that when you use Send to LayOut, ConDoc bundles everything together so you can drag and drop the finished drawings from the Scrapbooks panel.

Technically, you could insert the SketchUp model manually and build the drawings the old way, but then you would have to handle all of the viewport stacking, render modes, line weights, scene assignments, and layer settings yourself.

The ConDoc drawing export handles all of that for you automatically.

For issue four, the missing ConDoc Drawings scrapbook is probably the main problem.

On a fresh install, the ConDoc Drawings scrapbook does not exist yet.

The first time you run the ConDoc drawing export and send it to LayOut, that scrapbook is created. If you aren’t seeing it, close LayOut and reopen it. The ConDoc Drawings scrapbook should appear after reopening.

From that point forward, ConDoc will overwrite and update that scrapbook each time you export.

We have actually fixed this in an upcoming release by including a placeholder scrapbook from the beginning.

One other thing to double check is your SketchUp and LayOut versions. If you are exporting from SketchUp 2026, make sure you are opening LayOut 2026. It is easy to accidentally export from one version and open another, and that can create linking issues.

I would highly recommend scheduling a free consultation so we can take a look together. A quick screen share is usually the fastest way to spot what is going wrong and get you moving again.

You can schedule a screen share here:

https://bd.zohobookings.com/#/customer/mike

If you are in a pinch, you can also call the office at 720-443-3242. We want to make sure this is working for you.

[[email protected]]

Thanks so much.  I’m going to check to make sure I’ve tagged the terrain and any other large entities then book a call.  I also just updated to the new Sketchup but did not get a notification about a new Layout version so that could be an issue too, although the missing scrapbook was an issue before the update.

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