Yay! You're Using Data Shortcuts...

...oh crap, you want to run a slope stake report. 

This post is based on a tech support call from a customer in South Dakota (the same one that inspired this post, coincidentally)

He is being a good boy and using data shortcuts to create his cross sections in a separate drawing from the corridor. 

However, when he goes to the toolbox to create a corridor slope-stake report he can't run the report in either drawing.  The corridor drawing tells him that he needs sample lines and the sample line drawing tells him he needs a corridor.

So, I ask, "Why don't you just re-create sample lines in the corridor drawing?  You don't need views, just the sample lines."
He replies, "Well, I would but we have a lot of non-even stations and would need to manually re-input those."

So poking around at the Create sections dialog, I envision a plan:

1. WBLOCK the sample lines from the section drawing to a new block.
2. Open the new block and explode everything until you are left with lines. 
• This requires 3 explodes: from sample lines to blocks, from blocks to polylines, from polylines to lines.
• Delete any alignment information that came along for the ride.
3. Once the sample lines are lines zoom out so all sample lines are in view (even if that  means they are small little blobs on your screen) .
4. Type FLATTEN at the CAD command line. 
• This forces the lines to 0 elevation if they were not already.
• The lines must all be at 0 for the next steps.
5. Use PEDIT command to rejoin all the lines to polylines.
• Use the Multiple option
• Join the lines with 0.00 fuzz distance.
• If this is done correctly you only need to run the pedit command once.
6. Select all the polylines.
1. Right-click and select Clipboard > Copy with Base Point

2. When asked to specify basepoint type in 0,0
3. Now, get back to your corridor drawing (if you have it open already, use the CTRL+Tab keys to switch between open files.)
4. From the Home tab, Clipboard panel select Paste > Paste to Original Coordinates.
• Yay - polylines!
• At this point you will want to isolate the layer the polylines are on. 
5. Now go to Home tab > Profile & Section Views Panel > Sample Lines
6. When you're asked to pick the alignment, hit enter to pick from a list.  (because you've got the alignment turned off at this point right? )
7. Click OK to create the sample line group.
8. From the Create Sample line toolbar, click Select Existing Polylines.

9.  Use big ol' crossing window to select the polylines.
10. It should convert your polylines. 
• I say *should* because this process may fail if any of the polylines are:
• Not polylines
• At an elevation other than 0.
11. Go forth and run reports.

If someone knows a less step-y process, I'd love to hear it.  If you  have a script or something I'll be your bff.