What Is AccoreConsole?

AccoreConsole (formally accoreconsole.exe) is a headless, command-line version of AutoCAD that ships with every AutoCAD installation since AutoCAD 2013. It runs AutoCAD's full drawing engine — the same engine that powers acad.exe — but without the graphical user interface. No ribbon, no drawing canvas, no dialogs.

Think of it as AutoCAD without the windshield. You can't see where you're going, but the engine is running at full power. You communicate entirely through scripts and command-line switches.

The executable lives in the same directory as your main AutoCAD installation:

C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2025\accoreconsole.exe
AccoreConsole is not officially supported by Autodesk. It's included in every installation but Autodesk doesn't provide a user manual or guarantee backward compatibility. Despite this, it has been a stable and reliable tool since 2013, and thousands of engineering teams depend on it for production workflows.

Why Engineers Should Care

If your team performs any of these tasks regularly, AccoreConsole can transform your workflow:

  • Batch DWG-to-PDF conversion — converting hundreds or thousands of drawings to PDF for document submittals
  • Drawing cleanup and maintenance — running PURGE, AUDIT, and standards checks across entire drawing libraries
  • Title block updates — modifying block attributes (revision numbers, dates, project info) across all project drawings
  • Layer standardization — enforcing company or customer layer naming standards across drawing sets
  • File format migration — batch-converting drawings between DWG file format versions
  • Data extraction — pulling attribute data, block counts, or metadata from drawings programmatically
  • External reference management — detaching, repathing, or binding xrefs across entire projects

The common thread: repetitive operations on many drawings. Anything you'd otherwise open AutoCAD for, one drawing at a time, clicking through the same sequence, can be automated with AccoreConsole.

5x

Faster than full AutoCAD for batch processing. With less than 100MB RAM footprint and sub-second startup, AccoreConsole processes drawing after drawing without the overhead of a GUI.

How It Works

AccoreConsole accepts four primary command-line switches:

  • /i <drawing.dwg> — Specifies the input drawing file to open
  • /s <script.scr> — Specifies the script file to execute against that drawing
  • /l <language> — Invokes a localized language version (e.g., en-US)
  • /isolate — Prevents system variable changes from affecting your regular AutoCAD sessions

The basic usage pattern is simple:

accoreconsole.exe /i "C:\Drawings\part001.dwg" /s "C:\Scripts\process.scr"

This opens part001.dwg and executes every command in process.scr — exactly as if you typed them at the AutoCAD command line. When the script finishes, AccoreConsole closes.

A script file (.scr) is just a plain text file containing AutoCAD commands, one per line. For example, a script that purges unused elements and saves:

-PURGE
ALL

N
QSAVE
Key principle: Any command that doesn't require a dialog box or graphical interaction will work in AccoreConsole. The system variable FILEDIA is automatically set to 0, so commands that normally show dialogs will use command-line prompts instead. Prefix commands with a hyphen (e.g., -PURGE instead of PURGE) to force command-line mode.

Batch Processing: Converting 500 DWGs to PDF

Here's a practical example that most engineering teams need: converting an entire folder of DWG files to PDF.

Step 1: Create the script file (dwg2pdf.scr)

-EXPORTPDF

Step 2: Create the batch file (batch_convert.bat)

@echo off
SET ACCORE="C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2025\accoreconsole.exe"
SET SCRIPT="%~dp0dwg2pdf.scr"

FOR %%f IN ("%~dp0drawings\*.dwg") DO (
    echo Processing: %%~nxf
    %ACCORE% /i "%%f" /s %SCRIPT% /l en-US /isolate
)

echo Done. All drawings converted.
pause

Step 3: Run the batch file. AccoreConsole will open each DWG, execute the export command, close, and move to the next file. No user interaction required.

For more complex scenarios — like exporting specific layouts, or applying different plot configurations per drawing — you'll write more sophisticated scripts or load custom .NET plugins (covered below).

Going Beyond Scripts: Custom .NET Plugins

Script files are powerful for simple commands, but real-world automation often requires conditional logic, error handling, database lookups, and API calls. That's where .NET plugins come in.

AccoreConsole can load .NET assemblies (DLLs) coded against AcCoreMgd.dll — the same managed API used for full AutoCAD .NET development. This means you can write sophisticated automation in C# or VB.NET that:

  • Opens a drawing and reads every block attribute into a data structure
  • Queries an ERP or PLM system for current revision data
  • Updates title blocks, BOMs, and annotations based on the query results
  • Validates the drawing against engineering rules
  • Exports to PDF with the correct plot configuration
  • Logs results to a database or sends email notifications

The .NET plugin is loaded in the script file using the NETLOAD command:

NETLOAD
C:\Plugins\MyAutomation.dll
MYCOMMAND

Where MYCOMMAND is the custom command registered in your .NET assembly. The plugin runs inside AccoreConsole with full access to the AutoCAD object model — entities, blocks, layers, layouts, plot configurations, and the complete annotation stack.

Parallel

Multiple AccoreConsole instances can run concurrently. Unlike full AutoCAD, which typically runs as a single instance, you can launch multiple AccoreConsole processes to harness multi-core processors for true process-level parallelism.

Performance Benchmarks

The performance difference between AccoreConsole and full AutoCAD is dramatic. Based on real-world benchmarks documented by the AutoCAD developer community:

  • Startup time: AccoreConsole starts in under 1 second. Full AutoCAD takes 5-15 seconds depending on loaded plugins and customization.
  • Memory usage: AccoreConsole uses less than 100MB. Full AutoCAD typically consumes 500-1,000MB+.
  • Batch processing (145 drawings): AccoreConsole completed in 11 minutes. Full AutoCAD took 58 minutes — roughly a 5x difference.
  • Per-drawing overhead: With AccoreConsole, the overhead between drawings is negligible. With full AutoCAD, each drawing open/close cycle carries UI rendering overhead.

The speed advantage compounds with volume. At 10 drawings, the difference is a few minutes. At 1,000 drawings, it's the difference between a 75-minute batch job and an all-day affair.

Limitations and Gotchas

AccoreConsole is powerful, but it has boundaries that you need to understand before building production workflows:

  • No COM API (VLA functions): AutoLISP code that uses vla-* functions (Visual LISP ActiveX) will not work. Only core AutoLISP functions are supported. This is the most common stumbling block for teams porting existing LISP routines.
  • No GUI operations: Any command that requires a dialog box, file browser, or graphical interaction will fail. Your scripts must use command-line equivalents (prefix with hyphen).
  • No interactive input: Everything must be scripted. There's no way to prompt the user for input during execution.
  • Not officially supported: Autodesk acknowledges the tool exists but doesn't provide official documentation or guarantee backward compatibility between versions.
  • Limited vertical support: Commands specific to AutoCAD Mechanical, Electrical, or Plant 3D may not be available.
  • Network path complexities: Loading .NET assemblies from network paths requires additional configuration for .NET security policies.

The COM API limitation is particularly important. If your existing automation relies heavily on VLA functions, you'll need to refactor to use the core .NET API (AcCoreMgd.dll) instead. This is generally a worthwhile investment — the .NET API is more robust, performant, and maintainable than the COM/ActiveX approach.

AccoreConsole vs Cloud Automation (Autodesk Platform Services)

AccoreConsole is essentially the on-premises ancestor of what Autodesk now offers as a cloud service. The Autodesk Platform Services (APS) Design Automation API runs a similar headless AutoCAD engine in the cloud.

Here's how they compare:

  • AccoreConsole (on-premises): Requires a local AutoCAD license. Runs on your hardware. Full control over data — nothing leaves your network. No per-transaction cost. Best for teams with existing AutoCAD licenses and data sensitivity requirements.
  • APS Design Automation (cloud): No local AutoCAD installation needed. Runs on Autodesk's cloud infrastructure. Scales on demand. Pay per transaction (Flex tokens). Best for web applications, product configurators, and scenarios where end users don't have CAD software.
Use AccoreConsole when your drawings can't leave the network and you have existing AutoCAD licenses. Use APS Design Automation when you need web-based access, elastic scaling, or you're building a product configurator that non-CAD users will interact with.

For many manufacturing companies, the ideal architecture uses both: AccoreConsole for internal batch processing and standards enforcement, and APS for customer-facing configurators and partner portals.

When DIY Scripting Reaches Its Limits

AccoreConsole with script files is an excellent starting point. You can automate batch conversions, cleanup routines, and simple attribute updates with a few hours of scripting effort. But there's a complexity threshold where DIY approaches start to cost more than they save:

  • Conditional logic: When the automation needs to make decisions based on drawing content (e.g., "if this is a flange drawing, use plot configuration A; if it's a pipe, use B"), script files become unwieldy.
  • Error recovery: Production automation needs to handle failures gracefully — corrupt drawings, missing xrefs, network timeouts. Scripts have no error handling mechanism.
  • Integration: When you need to pull data from ERP, update PLM, or push results to a web dashboard, you've outgrown scripts.
  • Maintainability: When the person who wrote the scripts leaves the company, undocumented .scr files become a liability.

At this point, you need a properly engineered .NET application — version-controlled, tested, documented, and built with the AutoCAD API best practices that ensure stability across version upgrades. That's the kind of work that benefits from a team that builds CAD automation professionally.

If your batch processing needs have outgrown scripts, or you're evaluating whether AccoreConsole or cloud-based automation is the right architecture for your workflows, we'd be happy to discuss your specific use case.