Sorry but this is a long one. I created a design using Sketch-up Pro (on a trial, no subscription). I saved the design on my desktop. When the trial ended I thought I would at least be able to view the design and pan etc to see different angles but not edit. However when I tried to open the design it was blank and I could not recover it. After some investigation I found it had saved on onedrive. When I used onedrive to open it all that appeared were a load of Chinese characters. Sketch-up assistance advised that it was corrupted. In an effort to try and recover it I applied for another free trial. Once I did that my designs were once again visible and I was able to edit them. I have since then bee in contact with Sketch-up on how to save it so this does not happen again. They advised that I must save it on my desktop and also back up on trimble. However saving on my desktop did nothing the first time. I have tried multiple times to save on trimble but none of the steps for saving that are described on trimble pop up up when I follow their instructions. I intend to purchase the sketch-up Go as I realised that Pro was much more than what I needed. However I don’t want to lose the design I already spend so much time on. All I need is for it to be saved in a way that makes it possible for me to view, open, pan, change angles etc. No need to edit it. Please help?
Simply saving it to your computer will enable you to use it. The issue you seem to be misunderstanding is that it will be a .skp that needs software to open it.
There are many options, the free downloadable viewer, the free web based app, the paid for Go web based version, the desktop Pro version.
Basically, all of them will open a saved .skp file, without them a .skp file will look like a bunch of Chinese characters.
So, perhaps all you need to do for now is go to the web version and use the open option to navigate to your saved file and open it.
One option is to install the SketchUp viewer application. That can open SKP files and let you do the things you want to do. It’s free, you don’t need a subscription.
You can download the installer here:
Thanks so much for all the help. I installed the Sketch up Viewer and I’ll see if it makes a difference in how it saves.