CAD-e-Corner

Edit Multiple Pieces of Mtext

2008-03-04T20:36:00.003-06:00

Here's a clever little tip sent in from a user in one of our remote offices.

Select multiple pieces of Mtext and use the Properties Palette to edit the content. Of course entering new content where it says *VARIES* would result in overwriting all selected occurrences, but did you know you can use the ellipsis button to invoke the Mtext editor and edit each selected Mtext entity in turn? Each time you click OK in the Mtext Editor the Editor jumps to the next Mtext in the selection.

Just when you think you know everything...

Adding a Splash of Color

2008-02-21T22:26:00.003-06:00

Have you ever needed to add a splash of color to your otherwise black and white drawing?

Let's say that you have a plan drawing that plots using a CTB pen table where all the layer colors are mapped to black pens, and you need to plot a few lines or hatches in color. Ordinarily I'd advise you to convert the drawing from CTB (color table) to STB (style table), then set all the layers to plot with a black style except for the few that you want in color; those we would plot with the Normal style so that they plot with the layer color. However, whoever created this sheet didn't assign lineweights to their layers so many of the layer lineweights are still Default (i.e. not set) and hence the black line work wouldn't plot correctly.

Here's the tip:

The only colors that map to pens in a CTB drawing are the index colors 1-255. True colors, or Pantone colors, plot as displayed and do not map to CTB pens. So, use true colors for the layers or entities you wish to plot in color.

When you first click over to the True Color tab, you see all the true color information of the current standard index color. Click to select this same color as true color, then click OK.

Notice how the resultant true colors are displayed in the layer dialog. (I'll admit that I cobbled this together from some older existing drawing so ignore the poor layer names.)

Here's a portion of a plot using the TriSrv_F.ctb (Benham's old tried and true A/E/C CADD Standards pen table) and these few true color layers:
We still have the black line work that we normally expect in our plots, but we also have the added benefit of color for a presentation plot or a PDF plot.

Intro to Groups

2008-01-09T07:52:00.001-06:00

Straw poll: Ever heard of Groups in AutoCAD? Do you use Groups?
Most people are familiar with Blocks where multiple instances of a collection of entities point to a single definition. Editing the geometry of the Block definition modifies the appearance of every instance, or insertion, of the Block.

Similarly a Group is a collection of multiple entities that can be moved, rotated, deleted, etc. as if it were a single entity. However, unlike a Block, each Group is distinct. A Group can be temporarily un-grouped to modify sub-entities.

These workstations are composed of individual Blocks for the chair, partitions, and work surfaces. The Blocks were then collected into a Group named WKSTN-L1 using the GROUP command and copied two times.
The copied Groups were subsequently modified to account for site conditions, like the column in the second workstation or the end panel of the first workstation. Using a Block for the workstation wouldn't prove useful, since each workstation is slightly different in configuration, even though it's comprised of the same basic Blocks.

Copying a named Group results in an anonymous, unnamed Group. You can give the unnamed Group a meaningful name in the Object Grouping dialog using the Rename button. Use the Include Unnamed toggle to display the unnamed Groups.
This dialog does all sorts of other useful things:

Use the Highlight button to identify a Group by highlighting it on the screen (see image above).

Use the Find Name button to list the Group name of a selected entity.

Individual entities can be added to or removed from existing Groups using the Add and Remove buttons.

Explode existing Groups to permanently un-Group them and remove the Group name from the drawing.

The PICKSTYLE system variable controls whether a component entity or the entire Group is selected in editing operations. The default setting of PICKSTYLE is 1 (one) which is Group selection. To be able to Move, Copy, Erase, etc. a single entity of a Group, temporarily set PICKSTYLE to 0 (zero). The Ctrl-H key combination is a quick way to toggle PICKSTYLE between 1 and 0. (This is tantamount to using the Group dialog to change a Group's Selectable setting between Yes and No.)

Grip editing always works on component entities regardless of whether the entity is part of a Group or not.

The PICKSTYLE variable does double duty controlling the behavior of Hatches and their Boundaries, but that's material for another Tip another day.

Delete Duplicates

2007-12-05T12:14:00.000-06:00

OVERKILL

Have you ever had a drawing (from an outside source of course) with lines atop lines, or multiple line segments used where a single line would serve? There's an AutoCAD Express Tool to help with cleaning up such drawings. Start the OVERKILL command from pull down:

Express > Modify > Delete Duplicate Objects

The following dialog is displayed (shown with default options):

So what's it do? Primarily it deletes duplicate entities: text on top of text, blocks on top of blocks, lines on top of lines, plines on top of plines, etc. Where there were multiple entities that are exactly the same in size, position, orientation, etc. only one remains after running OVERKILL.

The dialog allows you to set certain comparison options.

The Numeric Fuzz - this value specifies how far off the geometry can be and still be considered duplicate. Increase this value if you have multiple lines, blocks, text, etc. almost on top of one another, but just ever so slightly shifted. (Which one is kept is anyone's guess.)
All the Ignore toggles tell OVERKILL to treat identical objects as one that may reside on different Layers, have discreet Colors, Linetypes, etc. Use in any desired combination.
In this example there are two north arrow blocks, one slightly offset from the other. I've changed the color of one of the blocks to red to make it more apparent. Running OVERKILL with the Ignore Color toggle checked, and a fuzz factor greater than the offset, leaves just one north arrow block. Oh look, it's the red one.
I recommend unchecking the PLINES optimization, for the first run anyway. This option examines plines for excess vertices and segments that track back upon themselves. It's a powerful and useful option, but it really slows down the comparison process. I'd run it in a subsequent session and limit it to just some of the plines at a time.
The left Pline shows the original vertices. Run OVERKILL with Pline optimization to obtain the right Pline.
The OVERLAP toggle tells OVERKILL to treat co-linear entities as one if they partially overlap.
The END to END toggle combines co-linear objects whose endpoints touch (or are within the fuzz factor).

In this example the top part has lines that overlap, as indicated by the black and red lines, and lines that almost touch. Running OVERKILL with the Ignore Color toggle checked, and a fuzz factor greater than the gap, results in the two lines below.

If you're very brave, and really understand this command and its options, you can even run it against multiple drawings using a script and the command line version, -OVERKILL.

Command: -OVERKILL
Select objects: 2144 found
Select objects:
IGNORE=Color
Fuzz=0.000001, Optimize PLINES=Y, etc...
Enter an option to change
[Ignore/Fuzz/Plines/parTial/Endtoend] <done>:

Hint: You probably want to do this on a copy of the drawings.

Here I am to save the day...

2007-11-13T22:03:00.000-06:00

SAVEALL (AutoCAD Express Tool)

This command will attempt to save all open drawings (without having to flip through each one), leaving the drawings open for continued editing. If a drawing has not yet been named, you're prompted for a file name.

CLOSEALL (just plain ol' AutoCAD)

All open drawings are closed. A message box is displayed for each unsaved drawing, in which you can save or discard any changes to the drawing before closing it.

QSAVE

Quick Save of the current drawing without prompting for file name, unless the current drawing has no name in which case the SAVEAS dialog is displayed. This is the command that's run when you select SAVE from the File pull down.

SAVEAS

Save the current drawing to another name and change to that drawing.

SAVE

Displays the SAVEAS dialog. Save the drawing as the current name or save as a copy under another name. AutoCAD stays in the current drawing. This command is only available from the keyboard.

There's only a slight variation between SAVE and SAVEAS. Did you spot it?

Lines Merge

2007-10-31T15:35:00.000-05:00

What's wrong with this picture? These two AutoCAD plots were made with all the same settings: Plotter, pen table, scale, etc. from the same drawing/same layers. However, the first image displays the lighting fixtures as bold and readable, whereas the second image shows the lights as obscured by the ceiling grid.
The only difference between the first and second plot is the order the entities were drawn in the database. In image two, the ceiling grid was placed last (or xreferenced last) and so is on top of the underlying light fixtures.

Can this be controlled? Can we force the light fixtures to show bold? The answer is a qualified yes.

For most plotters the default setting for Merge Control is Lines Overwrite. This means that the last entity placed in the database is plotted on top of other entities. At Benham, we typically change this setting on all of our plot devices to Lines Merge.This allows the bold, solid black light fixtures to "show through" the screened, gray ceiling grid.

Now for the qualification: not all plotter drivers have the Lines Merge ability; the DWG to PDF.pc3 for example does not. So now how does one make sure that the light fixtures plot bold and black when plotting to PDF? You're going to need to ensure that they're on top. Use the DRAWORDER command to send the ceiling grid to the back or bring the lights to the top.

The ByBlock Property

2007-10-17T09:07:00.001-05:00

Here's a little tip that borders the edge of extreme AutoCAD nerd: the ByBlock property.

First, some background:

The default property for a new entity is the ByLayer property. This applies to the Color, Linetype, Lineweight, and PlotStyle properties. This means that the entity gets these properties from the layer on which it resides. If you move an entity to another layer, it inherits the new layer's properties.

You can override an entity's ByLayer property and give it an explicit value. For example you might select a line and make its color Green regardless of the color of the layer. Consider the following example. In the first image all entities are drawn on Layer A-WALL-FULL which has a Color of 2, Linetype of Continuous, and Lineweight of 0.35mm. The second image shows the same entities when moved to Layer A-WALL-JAMB which is Color 1, Ltype Continuous, and Lineweight 0.25mm. The last image shows what happens when the properties of the line are assigned explicitly.

Lost yet? Let's further complicate this by introducing nested entities, i.e., entities within blocks. If an entity in a block is created on layer 0, it inherits the properties of any layer the block is then inserted on. If the entities in a block are created on any layer other than 0, they retain the properties of that layer. If entities in a block are given explicit properties, they retain those properties regardless of the insertion layer.

And, finally, we come to the reason for this discussion, the ByBlock property! Let's draw some entities on layer 0 and make a block of them. We will leave all the entities of the block with the default ByLayer properties except for one entity. To this entity we assign a Color and Plot Style of ByBlock.

What's happening here? The first image shows the settings of the entities that make up the block. The second image shows this block inserted on layer G-ANNO-TEXT. Note how the entities within the block take on the properties of the layer. In the third image we select the block and change its Color to 8 and its Plot Style to 40 (which is 40% black according to our pen table). Notice that only the upper sweep changed. It was the only entity in the block definition that had a ByBlock property, so it alone took on the properties that we assigned explicitly to the block. The other entities had a ByLayer property and so retained the insertion layer properties. Also notice that the ByBlock property behaves just like ByLayer until you actually assign a property to the block.

All of the Benham title blocks were created to behave in this manner. So, no matter what layer standard or pen table are required by the project, we can still get the Benham logo to plot correctly by changing the properties of the block. There's never need to explode or redefine anything.

Layer Filter

2007-10-02T17:27:00.000-05:00

Use Layer Property Filters to filter all the layers in your drawing to a manageable few.

Say you need to quickly set all the existing layers to a screened line plot style; a filter will allow you to display only those layers, and then you can make global changes. The Properties Filter button is found in the upper left corner of the Layer dialog.

Name the filter Existing, and enter the property criteria that will match only the existing layers, in this case we enter *-EXST under the Name property. (The star is a wildcard to match everything.)

Now use the Existing filter to limit the layer list to only those that end in -EXST. Select All and set the Color to 8 (gray) and/or the Plot Style to 40 (40% black) to get a screened line effect. You could also use this same filter to select the demolition layers for freeze/thaw or on/off.

You can use the same process to create a filter for -DEMO layers. You can even reverse this by creating a filter for new/proposed. Here's how: create a filter named not New and enter two lines for the name criteria, *-EXST and *-DEMO. The new filter will display only existing and demolition layers. Use the Invert filter in the lower left of the Layer dialog to show only layers that are not existing or demolition, making it in effect a not not New, or New, filter.

In these examples, the filter criteria has been the "Name" property, but you can also filter on other layer properties: color, linetype, lineweight, etc., or a combination.

Plot to PDF

2007-09-05T13:08:00.001-05:00

AutoCAD 2007 (and up) has the ability to plot directly to PDF with Autodesk provided plot drivers.

Under the Tools > Options > Plot and Publish tab there is a toggle to specify plot offsets relative to the Printable area or Edge of paper. Set this to Edge of paper when working with borders that have trim lines at the edges of the sheet
In the Page Setup (or Plot) dialog:
- Use the Autodesk provided plotter, DWG to PDF.pc3.
- Under Paper size, choose the paper orientation correctly - select a paper where the long edge is specified first, e.g. 36x24 and Landscape. 24x36 and Landscape will orient the plot correctly on the sheet, but won't orient the sheet correctly for the default view in Acrobat reader.
- Under What to plot, choose Layout.
- Make sure the Plot offset is 0 (zero) for both X and Y.

Plot Singly

You're prompted for the location and filename of the PDF when you OK the Plot dialog.

Plot Multiple

If you're using Sheet Sets (and you should be), create the PDF page setup for the sheet set using Manage Page Setups, and define the output folder for the PDF files in the Sheet Set Publish Options, both found under the drop down menu of the Publish button.

Now, anyone using this Sheet Set will have access to PDF page setup when Publishing using Page Setup Overrides, and all resultant PDFs get stored in the specified project location -- nice and tidy.

Procedural Considerations

Page Setup names should include an office code and indication of size. For example, a good name for your PDF page setup might be: OKC PDF Full
Typically, make full size PDFs: 24x36, 30x42, E size, D size, etc. This way the end recipient can produce a correctly scaled plot on a full size engineering plotter or scale to fit their printer.
Page setups created using the Sheet Set are stored in the Sheet Set (the DST file). They are available for use by any sheet in the set even if the page setup doesn't physically exist in the sheet drawing.
Avoid making changes to the DWG to PDF.pc3. Changes made to this file are stored in an associated PMP file which is local to your computer and not available to others.
The quality of OLE objects is significantly improved when creating PDFs with this new plotter driver.

Editing Attributes

2007-08-28T15:55:00.001-05:00

There are many ways to edit Block Attributes. The standard method is to simply double-click the Attribute to invoke the Enhanced Attribute Editor.

Use the Attribute tab to change the value of an Attribute. Use the Text Options and Properties tabs to change: Text style, Justification, Height, Width Factor, Oblique Angle, Layer, Color, Lineweight, etc.

So how does one edit more than one Attribute at a time? You can select the Blocks and use the Properties palette to modify values of common Attributes. Consider the three insertions of the two Blocks shown here.

Both Blocks have an Attribute with a tag name SEC. When three of the insertions are selected, the common Attribute Tags are available to edit in the Properties palette. Change the value as desired.Global editing of Attribute values can still be accomplished with the old, tried and true, -ATTEDIT command. Don't forget the dash; ATTEDIT alone invokes the older (non-Enhanced) Attribute Editor dialog. The -ATTEDIT command exists virtually unchanged since the very early days of AutoCAD, so the syntax is a bit clunky, but it will allow you to replace all or part of an existing Attribute value on all or selected Blocks. -ATTEDIT will also edit other Attribute properties beside value, but one by one, not on a global basis.

There's also an Autodesk supplied Express Tool, GATTE, that globally changes the selected Attributes' value only.

Xref Paths

2007-08-14T11:42:00.000-05:00

I'm often asked how does AutoCAD find and resolve external references, Xrefs? This tip (well a little more than a tip I'm afraid) will attempt to answer that question. Are you all sitting comfortably? Then let's begin.

AutoCAD searches for Xrefs in the following locations, in order, until it finds the external file:

The location specified in the Xref dialog,
The same folder as the current drawing,
The folders specified by PROJECTNAME,
The folders that make up the library path,
The current folder (the folder from which AutoCAD was started).

So let's cover each of these possibilities in a little more depth:

1. Specified Location

There are three ways to specify the Xref's location in the Xref dialog: Full Path, Relative Path, and No Path. Full path tells AutoCAD exactly where to look; e.g. P:\Proj\CAD\A\Det.

Relative Path gives AutoCAD a partial folder structure that is relative to the current drawing location. Let's say that your current drawing is in folder P:\Proj\CAD\A, then:

Xref location	Relative Path	What is happening
P:\Proj\CAD\xref.dwg	..\xref.dwg	ACAD looks back one folder from the current drawing folder (..\ means back up one folder)
P:\Proj\CAD\A\Det\xref.dwg	.\Det\xref.dwg or Det\xref.dwg	ACAD looks forward into Det from the current drawing folder (.\ means start from the current folder, or simply leave this off and the current folder is assumed)
P:\Proj\CAD\S\Det\xref.dwg	..\S\Det\xref.dwg	ACAD backs up one folder to CAD, then goes forward into S\Det

Compare the Saved Path to the Found At path in the Xref palette to see if you're getting expected results.

2. The Current Drawing's Folder

If AutoCAD cannot find the Xref in the specified or relative folder, or the Xref was attached with the No Path option, AutoCAD next looks in the current drawing's folder for the reference file.

3. PROJECTNAME

If AutoCAD fails to find the Xref in the specified folder, relative folder, or the current drawing's folder, then it searches the folders specified by the drawing's PROJECTNAME system variable.

Use Options > Files > Project Files Search Path to create projects. Let's say you create a project 6250620000 and add to it multiple folders. When you set a drawing's PROJECTNAME variable to 625062000 that drawing will search those specified folders, in order, when resolving references. Drawing's that have other values for PROJECTNAME will look in that project's folders.

Whereas the value of the PROJECTNAME variable is stored in the drawing, the Project folders are stored in the user's registry. So, if you use this method to create search paths for your references, make sure that you set up the Projects the same way on every workstation.

4. Library Path

This is the list of folders specified in Options > Files > Support File Search Path. These folders are typically the program folders for AutoCAD itself, but you can add your own folders too. Many Benham offices use an environment variable in this location, then start AutoCAD with a specific project start up batch file that, among other things, specifies folders for this variable. Clever huh?

In this example the TBGPATH variable is set to two folders. You can see that the variable does in fact resolve to the desired folders by comparing the Support File Search Path to the Working Support File Support Path, which is the path that AutoCAD is actually using for the session.

5. The Current Folder

The last place AutoCAD looks for Xrefs is in the current folder, the folder from which you started AutoCAD. This folder is specified by the Start in folder of the shortcut. Project start up batch files can also be used to set the current folder.If you make it a practice to keep all reference files in one folder, and start AutoCAD from that folder, then no matter what folder your sheets are in, or where the current drawing thinks its references are (specified path, relative path or project name), AutoCAD will still be able to resolve the references.

Let's Sum Up

So, which method is best? The answer depends a great deal on your needs. The easiest way is to simply use explicit paths. However, this is less than ideal when sending the files to clients, moving from drive to drive, changing the name of the root folder, etc. Using Relative paths is almost as easy and circumvents most of the problems above. Or, use the No Path option and let the start up batch file or project shortcut control the search locations for you.

Two Layer Tools

2007-07-20T15:24:00.000-05:00

This tip covers two commands: LAYERP and LAYMCUR. Both of these commands deal with layers, and can be found on the Layers toolbar. Perversely, they are described in reverse order below:

The second of these two tools is Layer Previous (LAYERP), and it is surprisingly little known. Layer previous allows you to step back through previous layer states. It's similar in function to Zoom previous which steps back through previous view states.

Examples:

Use Layer Freeze (LAYFRZ) to tag several entities whose layers you want to freeze (to "unclutter" your screen). Change, add, or delete entities on the remaining visible layers. Then use Layer previous to restore the layer state to how it was before you began making your changes. You don't have to invoke the Layer Properties dialog, scan through the list of layers, and (hopefully) thaw all the layers you froze earlier.
Use the Layer dialog to set the color of all layers, except the current layer, to gray. This makes entities on your current layer stand out against all other entities. Make any edits you wish. Then use Layer previous to restore the previous color settings to all layers.

Layer previous restores previous layer colors, linetypes, visibility, etc. LAYERP does not undo deleted layers, new layers, or renamed layers.

The first of the two tools is LAYMCUR. This tool makes the selected entity's layer the current layer.

Object Tracking

2007-06-26T10:00:00.001-05:00

Object tracking in AutoCAD is a way to "harvest" existing geometry to draw new geometry using the point acquisition techniques discussed in last week's tip. The idea being that you don't need to create as many construction lines to help with laying out new geometry. (Who uses Rays anyway?) The best way I could figure to illustrate Object Tracking was by way of a few examples. These examples require that Object Tracking be On (depress OTRACK on the AutoCAD status bar, or toggle Otrack On/Off with F11), and that at least some Running Object Snaps are set and On (depress OSNAP on the status bar, or toggle with F3).

Track Relative To

You can use object tracking to draw relative to a given point:

Ensure that you have set a running object snap of at least Endpoint
Draw a rectangle
Restart the rectangle command
Hover over the lower right corner of the first rectangle to acquire its endpoint (don't pick yet)
Drag to the right, you should see a dotted object tracking line through the acquired point

Pick to start your rectangle's first corner
Hover over the upper right corner of the first rectangle to acquire its endpoint (don't pick)
Drag to the right and pick to complete the second corner of the rectangle

You now have two rectangles whose lower and upper edges are at the same Y ordinates.

Find Imaginary Points

In this example we're going to draw a circle centered on an imaginary intersection.

Ensure that the Extension running object snap is set
Draw two skewed lines as shown
Start the Circle command
Hover over the end of each line to acquire the endpoints (don't pick)
Drag to the right near to where the lines would intersect if they were longer

Once the the tracking lines appear you will be ready to snap to the imaginary intersection
Pick to place your center point, then complete your circle

Build new Coordinates from Existing Geometry

In this example we're going to combine the X ordinate from one acquired point with the Y ordinate from another acquired point to build a new coordinate pair.

Ensure that the Endpoint running object snap is set
Draw lines as shown

Start another draw command
Hover to acquire endpoints from both lines (don't pick)
Drag to find two different coordinates using the Xs and Ys of the acquired points, pick the desired one

New Object Snaps

2007-06-19T14:19:00.000-05:00

There are a couple of new, well newish, object snaps available in AutoCAD. The Parallel object snap allows you to draw parallel to another object. The Extension object snap allows you to draw to a point in space that lies along where an object would be if it extended out that far. Using both of these newish object snaps requires picking up a new skill, or habit, called acquiring points.

First turn on the two new running object snaps. Right-click the OSNAP button on the status bar, and choose Settings from the menu. Check the Extension and Parallel snap modes and make sure that Object Snap On is checked.

Draw a line in space. Start another line; pick a start point. Here's the new skill: Hover over the first line until you see the Parallel object snap marker appear. Don't pick! Now move your cursor away from the first line until you track parallel to it. A faint dotted line appears when you're tracking parallel. Pick your second point to complete the parallel line.Using the Extension object snap is similar. For this example, draw an arc. Start a line; pick a start point. Hover over one end of the arc until you get the acquisition marker. Again, don't pick. Move the cursor away from the end of the arc, near to a point along where the arc would be if it were longer, until you track to the arc's extension. Pick a second point to complete the line. The new line ends exactly on the arc's circle.

If you accidentally acquire the wrong point, hover over it again to "unacquire" it. The acquisition marker will disappear. Now you can pick or acquire another point.

Corollary Tip: Before you can use Object Tracking effectively you will need to become proficient at acquiring points.

Polar Mode

2007-06-12T17:02:00.000-05:00

Are you Orthodox?

Ortho is one of the favorite drawing modes in AutoCAD. Hitting the F8 key, to toggle Ortho on and off, is almost a reflex for most of us. In this tip I'm asking you to unlearn it. There's a better way. Heresy you say?

Polar mode was introduced in AutoCAD 2002. In this heretic's opinion, it does away with the need for Ortho mode. Polar mode is toggled On/Off with the F10 key (or the Polar button on your task bar). By default the four ortho angles are the default polar angles. As you draw or drag, you will snap to these angles as you come near to them, so you can use free angles or polar angles automatically without toggling any mode settings.

In this example image, I'm drawing a line. The first segment was drawn at an arbitrary angle. The second segment will be exactly 0 degrees because Polar mode is active and I'm close to a polar angle. A fine dashed line appears along the polar angle when you're ready to snap to it.The aperture size determines how near you must approach the polar angle before AutoCAD snaps to it. (The APERTURE system variable controls the size of the object snap target box.)

You can also add other polar angles to the traditional four orthogonal angles.

Right-click on the Polar button on your status bar and select Settings... to change your polar angle settings. (Or enter DSETTINGS at the command line and choose the Polar Tracking tab.)

Here you can change the increment angle, even add your own, and tell Polar mode to track using the additional angles.

If you become an adherent of Polar mode, you will eventually find that you're trying to draw a non-constrained line near to a polar angle and AutoCAD is snapping to the polar angle. You can press and hold down the F10 key to override Polar mode for the next pick.

I expect that this tip may prove polarizing, but before you make a pariah of me, give Polar a try and see if you don't become a believer.

Match Property Settings

2007-06-05T09:32:00.000-05:00

The AutoCAD Match Properties command, MATCHPROP, is an easy way to paint properties from existing objects onto other objects. Simply select the source object and its properties are applied to the target objects.

By default target objects take on the Color, Layer, Linetype, Linetype Scale, Lineweight, Thickness, and Plot Style of the source object. Some object types can take on additional properties from like source objects.

Dimension objects take on the Dimension Style of source Dimensions
Polylines can inherit global width and linetype generation properties from source Plines
Text receives the Text Style from source Text
Viewports match the On/Off, Display Locking, Scale, Shade Plot, Snap, Grip and UCS Icon visibility of the source Viewport
Hatches will become the source Hatch pattern and scale
Tables inherit Table Style from source Tables

Additionally, AutoCAD 2008 provides for painting properties from/to Multileaders which get Multileader Styles. And all annotative objects can match the annotative properties of source objects.

If you don't want all the properties from the source object, you can limit the painted properties by changing the Property Settings before selecting target entities.

Command: MATCHPROP
Select source object:
Current active settings: Color Layer Ltype Ltscale ...
Select destination object(s) or [Settings]:

Enter an S (or Settings) at the Select destination objects prompt to get the Settings dialog.

Simply uncheck any property you don't want to apply to the source objects. For example: you want to change the target objects to match the source object's layer, but don't want to affect the linetypes; uncheck the Linetype property. Or, you want to apply the Hatch layer from one Hatch to another, but don't want to change the existing Hatch pattern; uncheck the Hatch box under Special Properties.

Explode Text

2007-05-29T12:23:00.001-05:00

Have you ever seen your company logo, client logo, or other specific text rendered with an unexpected font? Here's what's happening: You've selected a particular text font for your purpose, but the end user, recipient, or whomever, does not have that font loaded on their workstation so AutoCAD is substituting another font in its place.

Here's a cheat to ensure that your logo is never rendered incorrectly. Convert it to geometry with the Express Tool TXTEXP. This tool explodes Text or Mtext into closed polylines suitable for hatching. It can be found under Express > Text > Explode text.

The image above shows a line of text with an unusual font and the same text exploded with TXTEXP. The next step would be to Hatch the resultant polylines with a solid fill pattern. Now you have geometry that will always display and plot as expected.

AutoCAD Selection Techniques

2007-05-23T07:23:00.000-05:00

Most editing commands issue the standard Select objects: prompt and you then click on every object you want to add to a selection set. You can enter modifiers at the Select objects: prompt to change the way objects are selected.

W		select by Window
C		select by Crossing window
P		reuse the Previous selection set
L		select the Last entity drawn
F		select by Fence
WP		select by Window Polygon
CP		select by Crossing window Polygon
All (Ctrl-A)		select All
A		add objects mode
R		remove objects mode

Using Window, objects must lie completely within the window boundary to be selected. Contrast that with Crossing window where objects within the window or crossed by the boundary are selected. Fence selects all objects crossed by a line. Window and Crossing Polygons behave like Window and Crossing but their boundaries can be a polygonal shape and not a mere rectangle. Previous lets you reselect your previous selection set; very handy. And Last selects the last object drawn from the objects currently visible. If you select everything, bear in mind that objects on Frozen layers are ignored and therefore not selected, whereas objects on layers that are Off are selected. This is one of the differences between Off and Frozen.

If you miss when picking an object AutoCAD assumes that you're going to select by Window or Crossing and the pick point becomes the first corner of the Window or Crossing. As you drag to the right notice that your boundary is solid indicating that your going to select via Window. But if you drag to the left, your boundary is dashed indicating that you're selecting with Crossing.

If you want to remove objects from your selection you can issue the R modifier and subsequent selected objects, using any of the methods above, are removed from the current selection set. Use the A modifier to return to add objects mode. Bonus Tip: you can temporarily enter remove objects mode by holding down the Shift key while selecting.

In AutoCAD 2006 you can cycle thru objects that lie atop one another by holding down the Ctrl key as you're selecting. This has changed for AutoCAD 2007 and up: now you Shift-Spacebar as you roll-over the object to "pre-highlight it" before actually picking it (Ctrl-Spacebar for subobjects: faces, edges, vertices). Of course this only works if your roll-over highlighting is On. This setting is controlled in the Selection Preview area of the Selection tab in Options.

Use the Visual Effects Settings..., Advanced Options... to exclude various objects: Xrefs, Hatches, etc. from roll-over highlighting.

While we're here, let's go over a few of the Selection Modes.

"Noun/verb selection" allows you to select objects first then run the command.
"Shift to add" will really mess you up. Turn this on to annoy your friends.
"Press and drag" makes window selection act like Microsoft Windows (pick-drag to corner) rather than classic AutoCAD (pick-pick)
"Implied windowing" must be on if you want pick-miss to imply a window/crossing selection, otherwise pick-miss just misses.

Select by Property

And for extra added selection power don't forget the QSELECT command. Is anyone interested in a tip on the FILTER command?

Use Design Review as an Acrobat replacement

2007-05-15T17:19:00.000-05:00

Have you ever found yourself wishing for a full seat of Acrobat so you could create your own PDF documents, and have the ability to insert, remove, or reorder pages, but you don't want to spend the $500 plus that Adobe wants for this application? Try creating and editing your documents as DWF files first and only taking it to PDF right at the end.

Here's what you'll need:

The Autodesk DWF Writer for printing DWF files from Office or non-Autodesk applications, and
Autodesk Design Review for editing the DWFs
Some way to print to PDF at the end

Both of the Autodesk products are available free and can be downloaded from the Autodesk website. There are many inexpensive system printers that can be downloaded from the internet that can output to PDF. I use PDF995.

The Autodesk DWF Writer installs as a printer on your system. Use this printer to print your non-Autodesk documents to DWF format. When the Autodesk DWF Writer printer is installed on your system, it creates toolbars in your Office applications to make writing DWFs easy.

To create DWFs from AutoCAD drawings, either:

Plot to the DWF6 ePlot plotter
Choose the DWF option from the Publish dialog,
Or use the Publish to DWF option from the Sheet Set Manager.

Open all the resultant DWFs using multiple sessions of Design Review. Here you can:

Drag pages from file to file to combine DWFs
Reorder pages by dragging them around in the Contents palette
Rename pages
Delete/replace pages

And finally, print your DWF from Design Review to PDF format using your PDF Windows printer driver of choice. Choose All for the Print Range. Check Choose paper source by DWF page size. And, set Scale to 100%, Clip Pages, and Center on Paper. The resultant PDF should look just like your DWF document and may contain mixed page sizes and layout orientations.

Delete Layer

2007-05-08T08:26:00.000-05:00

Layers: we all use them, need them, love them, and hate them; especially when we can't get rid of a persistent layer. If Purge won't remove an unwanted layer here, are some heavy handed tools that will.

LAYDEL

The Layer Delete command, LAYDEL, started life as an Express Tool and has become part of the core AutoCAD package beginning with version 2007. This command prompts you to select an entity on the layer to delete, or you can enter/select the layer name. The unwanted layer is then stripped from the drawing including everything that might reside on this layer. A powerful and dangerous command; use with care.

LAYTRANS

Just as effective, this command, also a former Express Tool, translates a selected layer and its contents to another layer, removing the source layer from the drawing. This is a bit safer than LAYDEL in that you won't lose items tied to the source layer, they just get moved to the target layer.In the Layer Translator, select the unwanted layer in the "Translate From" pane. Then either Load the layer you wish to "Translate To" from an existing drawing or drawing standards file (you may even select the current drawing), or select New and create a layer. In the example above I'm creating a new layer 0. (Important: since this layer already exists in my drawing, the existing layer will be updated to the new properties.) Click the Map button to establish the mapping, and click Translate. Now examine the Layer dialog; got G-ANNO-MILK?

Both of these commands are powerful enough to find the persistent layers no matter where they reside, even reaching into block definitions to find and remove/translate the unwanted layers.

Setting Hatch Boundary boundaries

2007-05-01T11:17:00.000-05:00

Do you really want to do this?

This message might be displayed when placing a hatch pattern or when editing an element that forms the boundary of the hatch. What AutoCAD is really telling you is that it's about to perform some intensive analysis and might get really slow, or worse, crash. AutoCAD displays this message when it has to analyze over 1000 entities.

Most of us use the "flood fill" method to place hatches. When you pick points to determine your hatch boundary, glance down at the command line to see:

Pick internal point or [Select objects/remove Boundaries]: Selecting everything...
Selecting everything visible...
Analyzing the selected data...
Analyzing internal islands...

Note the second line, "Selecting everything visible," this means that AutoCAD is going to analyze everything currently visible on the screen to find a valid closed hatch boundary surrounding your pick point. This might include reference files and, if so, puts a huge burden on AutoCAD to examine every element in the references to determine whether it should be part of the hatch boundary. This doesn't mean that you cannot, or should not, use elements within reference files as part of your hatch boundary, just be aware of what you're asking AutoCAD to do.

Limiting your Boundary set

There's a little known tool on the Hatch dialog that helps you limit the boundary set that AutoCAD must analyze to find a boundary. Select the New button (1) and select only the entities you know will form part of the boundary. This allows you to exclude entities from consideration, or limit the analysis to only one reference. After creating a boundary set, use the Pick points method as you normally would to find the hatch boundary.

Controlling associativity

You can opt to make hatches associative or not with the Associative toggle in the Hatching dialog (2). This value is stored in the system variable HPASSOC. Associative hatch is tied to its boundary and is automatically recalculated and redrawn if the boundary, or elements of the boundary are moved.

You can disassociate an existing hatch by setting its Associative property to No in the Properties palette.

Knowing your boundaries

How can you tell what boundaries are associated with a given hatch pattern? Set your PICKSTYLE to 2 (or 3, it's typically 1) and then select the hatch. All the elements of the hatch's boundary are also selected. Be careful not to press the Del key at this point! And don't forget to return PICKSTYLE's value to 1 when you're finished examining your hatch boundaries.

Another little trick is to tell the Hatch to retain boundaries (3) once it's found them. This makes the association tied to the generated polyline or region and not to the elements analyzed to determine the boundary. You can even do this after the fact. Use the HATCHEDIT command to edit the existing hatch (this dialog is very similar to the HATCH dialog). Use the Recreate boundary button (4) to recreate the boundary and reassociate the existing hatch to it.

Globally Import Page Setups

2007-04-25T07:51:00.000-05:00

I'm often asked... sometimes asked... well, somebody asked me once if there was a way to globally import page setups into multiple drawings.

If you're using Publish you can apply page setup overrides at plot time to all sheets, even sheets that do not contain, or have incorrect page setups. But, you're ~~obsessive compulsive~~ conscientious and you want all of your sheets to contain the correct Named Page Setups. Use DWG TrueView 2008 (or previous versions of DWG TrueConvert) to globally apply Named Page Setups to existing sheets.

DWG TrueView is a free download from Autodesk to view, plot, and convert DWGs from one AutoCAD format to another.

Start the application with: Start > All Programs > Autodesk > DWG TrueView 2008> DWG TrueView 2008

To import page setups:

File > DWG Convert... to open the DWG Convert module. Here you will add the files into which you wish to import the new page setups. At this point you're probably asking yourself "Why am I converting files? I don't want to convert the file format." Bear with me, there's a little trick coming.
Click the Conversion Setup... button and create a New conversion setup. Name it Import Page Setups with the following settings:
Conversion package type: In-place (overwrite files)
File Format: (and this is important!) This must match the current drawings' version or you will in fact convert your drawings.
Check the Create backup files toggle if you want to make BAKs of the DWGs, (not a bad idea).
And here's the trick: check the Replace page setups toggle. Use the Page Setups... button to browse to the drawing or template that has the new and improved page setups. Select the desired page setups to import, and click OK (twice) then Close to return to the DWG Convert dialog.

Use the add the drawings button (at the bottom of the file list) to add the sheets that are to receive the new or modified page setups.
Make sure that your new conversion setup is highlighted and click the Convert button.

There are some significant caveats to keep in mind using this method:

This method replaces all page setups in the target drawings. Existing page setups are removed and the new ones are imported.
This method does not set a page setup as current. The previous (and now missing) page setup is still current, even if it has the same name as an imported page setup. So you still have to go through each drawing and set an imported Named Page Setup as current (sigh). BTW I have an AutoLISP routine that will set as current a Named Page Setup. This lisp code can be run in a global script to fix each drawing.

Introducing Autodesk Design Review 2008

2007-04-13T10:43:00.000-05:00

You may have previously known this application as DWF Composer. It has recently undergone significant transformations:

It's now FREE from Autodesk. Finally!
It can batch print multiple, individual DWF files (with a plug-in, also free).
It can now import DWG and DXF files, even DGNs (with free plug-in).
It can write Microsoft compatible DWFx files. (for Windows Vista's XPS Viewer.)

Autodesk Design Review allows you to:

View DWF files.
Redline DWF files (these markups can be later viewed by AutoCAD in the original drawing).
Measure distances and areas.
Print to scale, cropping or tiling the drawing as necessary.

You can install Design Review by downloading it from the Autodesk website.

Use Start > Programs > Autodesk > Autodesk Design Review to launch the application.

Open a DWF with File > Open
Import a DWG with File > Import (Unfortunately, Design Review doesn't understand Xrefs, so this has limited usefulness.)
The Contents pane of the Navigator (at left) allows you to view the desired page of your DWF file.
Zoom and Pan using the wheel on your wheel mouse. Roll up and down to Zoom in and out. Pick and hold the wheel to Pan the view.
Redline by placing call outs, drawing freehand, or placing stamps using the markup tools on the toolbar.
The measuring commands on the toolbar allow you to trace geometry for distances and areas.
Redlines and Dimensions are listed in the Markups pane, allowing you to Jump to or delete the markup.
Turn On/Off layers (if they were saved in the DWF) using the Layers pane.
Compose your DWFs combining multiple DWFs into a single, multi-page file, or remove or reorder pages within your DWF file.

This is just a brief overview of the functionality available in Design Review. Now, some things to know about AutoCAD:

The easiest way to save Layer information in your DWFs is through the PUBLISH command under the Publish Options; or you can do it with the PLOT command by changing the properties of the DWF6 ePlot.pc3.
View redline DWFs using the MARKUP command; File > Load Markup Set

Bonus tip: Show your project managers how to use this tool. Give them DWFs to view and redline thus keeping them safely out of AutoCAD and your valuable DWGs!

Quick Select

2007-04-13T10:34:00.000-05:00

Quick Select allows you to use criteria for selecting objects. For instance you want to select all blocks of a given name:

Open your Properties palette by clicking the Properties button on the Standard Toolbar (or Modify > Properties, or Ctrl+1, or PROPERTIES at the command line). Click the Quick Select button in the upper right corner of the Properties palette.

This brings up the Quick Select dialog. Work this dialog from the top down.

Apply the selection criteria to the Entire drawing, or limit it to a specific area or selection set by clicking on the Select objects button at the right.
Set the Object type to Block Reference.
The Property to select by is Name.
The Operator to use is Equals. Set the Value to the desired Block name, e.g. EP-502.

Click OK and AutoCAD, in this example, selects all Blocks in the current space whose Name equals EP-502.

This information is now displayed in the Properties palette.

Now you can do something against this selection set. Say you want to change the scale of all of these block symbols from 72 to 96. Notice the X, Y, and Z scales of the currently selected blocks; the Y scale varies. This probably means that some of the Blocks were Mirrored and the Y scale is negative. If we simply change the scale to 96 for all three scales, we would "flip" the mirrored Blocks.

So, we first need to refine our selection set. Click the Quick Select button again.

This time:

Apply criteria to the Current selection to further modify it.
Leave the Object type as Block Reference.
Change the selection Property to Scale Y.
Use Great than as the Operator.
and enter 0 for the Value.

Click OK and examine the results in the Properties palette.

There should be fewer selected blocks (only blocks with positive Y Scales) and the Scale Y will (hopefully) now read the same as the X and Z scales. Change these values to 96 to rescale your Blocks: X=96, Y=96, and Z=96.

Perform these operations again, using a Less than operator this time, to rescale the mirrored Blocks as well: X=96, Y=-96, and Z=96.

Use Quick Select to apply all manner of criteria to your selections.

Making a Selective Purge Button

2007-03-30T12:54:00.000-05:00

Someone asked if there were an easy way to purge some, but not all, unused items in their drawing. For instance they do not want to purge unused layers. They have prepopulated their architectural background with all the anticipated architectural layers and don't want lose them.

A previous purge tip shows how to selectively purge items with the Purge dialog; however, the user simply wants a button that will purge all unused Blocks, Linetypes, Mline styles, Plot styles, Shapes, Table styles, and Text styles but NOT the Layers or Dimension styles. It's a fair request, and it sounds like a good job for a Toolbar button macro or Tool Palette macro.

Welcome to CUI 101!

Type CUI at the command line to bring up the Customize User Interface dialog. We're going to work this dialog from the upper left down, then from upper right down.

In the "Customizations" section, set your CUI to Custom.cui, (this is so we don't modify or "mess up" the default ACAD.CUI). Select the Toolbars branch, right-click, and add a new toolbar named Utilities.

In the Command List section, use the New button to add a new command macro.

Select the broom for the Button Image.

Use the Properties section to rename your new command macro to Selective Purge. Change the Macro to run the PURGE command with desired responses:

^C^CMULTIPLE;-PURGE;B;*;N;LT;*;N;P;*;N;SH;*;N;ST;*;N;M;*;N;T;*;N;R;*;N;^C

Does this look like gobbledygook? We need to use the command line version of PURGE to be able to place the command and responses into a macro. Let's dissect this macro: The ^C^C represents two Escapes (this gets us out of whatever command might be active when we click on the button). Then we run the MULTIPLE command to repeat the next command, -PURGE (command line version), until canceled. The semi-colons act as Enters. Then use B for Block, * for all, and answer the prompt to verify each item to be purged with N for No. Then we do the same sequence for LT (Linetypes), P (Plotstyles), SH (Shapes), ST (Text Styles), M (Multiline Styles), and finally R (Registered applications). The last ^C (Esc) cancels the MULTIPLE command.

The last step is to drag our new command onto our new toolbar. Select the Selective Purge command from the Command List and drag it up to the Utilities toolbar in the Customizations tree (clumsily illustrated above).

Now that we have a Toolbar with a Selective Purge command, you can also drop the new command onto a Tool Palette. Make sure that your new Toolbar is displayed and open your Tool Palette window (Ctrl+3). Right-click the title bar of the tool palette and click Customize Palettes... Now drag the button from the toolbar to the desired palette. The black horizontal line indicates where the command will be placed. Close the Customize dialog.

Boxing your Text

2007-03-21T23:03:00.000-05:00

Use the Express Tool TCIRCLE to place a box around text.

Command: TCIRCLE
Select objects: [select your text]
Enter distance offset factor <0.35>: [Enter]
Enclose text with [Circles/Slots/Rectangles] <circles>: R
Create rectangles of constant or variable size [Constant/Variable] <variable>: C
Maintain constant rectangle [Width/Height/Both] <both>: [Enter]

Depending on your Text type, you will get different results with this tool. Whereas the TCIRCLE command works well on Mtext and individual lines of text, it doesn't do particularly well for paragraphs of Dtext. For this, consider using the TBGBOXTEXT command.


TCIRCLE and Mtext	TCIRCLE and Dtext	TBGBOXTEXT and Dtext

Note: the command TBGBOXTEXT is an older command on the Benham (my company) menu and as such is not available to non-Benham users.

You can choose to enclose your text with a rectangle (as above), a slot (shown below), or a circle.

The prompts for constant or variable size control whether TCIRCLE creates objects that just fit the selected text or are the same size for all selected text.

Using Slots with Constant size

Using Slots with Variable size

AutoCAD 2007 Distance Quirk

2007-03-21T22:50:00.000-05:00

An interesting change to the AutoCAD distance command occurred in the 2007 release. When using object snaps to query distances of model space objects from paper space, you're now given the model space distance. Compare this to previous versions where you first needed to make model space active to query model space distances.

For example: consider this simple plan in a viewport at a scale of 1/8"=1'-0". Using AutoCAD 2006, execute the distance command from paper space and snap to the end points of the top line.

Command: DIST
Specify first point: [pick left endpoint]
Specify second point: [pick right endpoint]
Distance = 0'-4 1/2", Angle in XY Plane = 0, Angle from XY Plane = 0
Delta X = 0'-4 1/2", Delta Y = 0'-0", Delta Z = 0'-0"

Now perform the same operation using AutoCAD 2007 and compare the results.

Command: DIST
Specify first point: [pick left endpoint]
Specify second point: [pick right endpoint]
Distance = 36'-0", Angle in XY Plane = 0, Angle from XY Plane = 0
Delta X = 36'-0", Delta Y = 0'-0", Delta Z = 0'-0"

Blog Tag! What the... ?

2007-01-10T21:29:00.000-06:00

OMG, how do I get roped into these things? Blog Tag? The latest craze in internet spam? If I didn't have enormous respect for McEachron I'd summarily file this chain mail (chain blog?) with all the rest of them.

First, an explanation: You've likely noticed that I haven't posted in a while now. The reason: I'm back in production! Yes that's right, after 11 years of the cush job of CAD Services Administration, one of our managers decided it was time for me to earn my money the old fashioned way; by producing drawings. I'm doing industrial process piping (which I know nothing about), using Bentley's AutoPLANT (which I know little about) on top of AutoCAD (which I maintain the fiction of knowing quite a bit about). So, is this an excuse for not posting, you ask yourself? Yes. I'm working 12 hour plus days away from home and I'm not up for it right now.

So, on to the 5 CAD related things you didn't know about me (and likely don't really care to know):

1. I've been in the AEC business since I wandered into an Architect's office in 1981 at the tender age of 20 looking for work. In 1987, after thoroughly enjoying board drafting, I was asked to produced some site plans using AutoCAD v2.18. Bear in mind that I had never sat at a computer, and frankly distrusted them. I used to check the math on my pocket calculator. Needless to say I hated it. I worked at it for a month before I realized that DOS and AutoCAD were two different things!

2. About 9 months of AutoCAD later (I know, this is so pitiful) I discover scripts. Wow! No more typing in Layer names from my hand drawn layer matrix to change from the site plan, to the grading plan, to the utility plan! Hey, this is pretty cool after all!

3. Another year passes, I'm using AutoCAD 2.6, and discovering AutoLISP. I learned LISP from the reference manual (back in the days when you got all manner of printed documentation with your three 5 1/2" floppies), and two guys in our firm who were way smarter than I'll ever be. By the way, I don't recommend the reference manual as a tutorial. It's only good for looking up syntax. There was a small tutorial inside called "Down the Garden Path" that was just too aptly named.

4. Years pass. I'm to the point where I'm answering more of my colleagues' questions than I'm asking. One lady in our firm used to come to me on a daily basis with a handful of questions that I dutifully answered, only later to discover that she was teaching AutoCAD at the local community college and I was augmenting her curriculum.

5. I've been the CAD Services Admin at my firm for some 11 years now, 5 for the OKC division and 6 in corporate. I love helping users. I love turning someone on to something new and cool that they didn't know before. I fancy myself a good instructor, because I know what it's like to be overwhelmed by technology. No one was worse at it than I was, so I'm very patient with newbies and those struggling to latch hold of a new concept.

There Scott I hope you're happy! Now I have the abominable task of passing this on to someone else. Of course, I'm going to do it to a dear friend and not some jerk who really needs it. So, Mr. Durkee tag, you're it.

Want to count some Blocks? Then eat Text.

2006-12-12T21:36:00.000-06:00

Use the AutoCAD Enhanced Attribute Extraction wizard to count Blocks in your drawings and neatly display them in an AutoCAD Table. Don't let the name fool you, you can use this wizard to count even Blocks that have no attributes.

Run the EATTEXT command or choose Tools > Attribute Extraction... to begin the wizard which consists of six pages of dialogs. On the first page you choose to create a Table from scratch or you can reuse settings that you've previously saved.

The second page of the wizard allows you to choose the drawings from which to count Blocks. You can limit the count to a specific selection set, the current drawing, select multiple drawings or even an entire sheet set. The Additional Settings... button allows you to control whether externally referenced, nested, or paper space Blocks are included in the count.

The third page of the wizard lists all Blocks in the selected drawings. Here you can elect to exclude Blocks that have no attributes, or exclude/include specific Blocks. Use right-click to Check All/Uncheck All or edit the Display Name of the desired Attributes or Block properties (this is the value that is displayed in the resultant Table).
The fourth page of the wizard is a preview of the Table to be created and a summation of the selected Blocks. Right-click on the column headings to rename, rearrange, sort, filter, or hide columns. Drag the column heading buttons to change their order. You also choose the output type on this page. The output can be to an AutoCAD Table and/or a comma delimited text file (suitable for Excel).The fifth page allows you to choose the Table Style to use when placing your Table. You want to edit your Table's appearance here; do not edit the Table itself. Manual edits to the Table are discarded when the Table is updated. That's right, this Table is linked to the selected Blocks and can be updated to reflect changes to the Blocks!

The last page of the wizard gives you the opportunity to save all the settings from the previous five pages as a template for use in performing this same extraction again in other drawings at other times.

When you finally OK the last page of the wizard you're prompted for an insertion point for your Table. It's good practice to always place the Table in Paper Space.

Right-click on the Table at anytime and choose Update Table to refresh the Table or edit the extraction settings. (Remember manual edits will be discarded on update.) Depending on your AutoCAD settings you're notified with a balloon in your tool tray when drawing changes necessitate refreshing your Table.

How good are these extracted Attributes and Block counts? Only as good as your drawing. Exploded blocks won't be counted and Attributes that weren't filled in correctly won't display the correct information.

Repath an Xref

2006-12-05T16:51:00.000-06:00

Have you ever opened a drawing and found that an Xref failed to load because it was moved or renamed on the network? You dutifully pick up the phone and ask the Project CAD Coordinator what's going on, and they tell you that the original background was not named according to standards, and that they've "fixed" the issue. So you detach the missing Xref that has the old name, then re-attach the correctly named background. Now you have to reset all the Xref Layer properties again: Freeze/Thaw state, Color, etc.

Try this instead: repath the existing Xref attachment (or overlay) to the new name. Open the Xref dialog, select the missing Xref, and Browse to its new name/location. This way you preserve all your previous modifications to the reference's layers.

AutoCAD 2006 and previous (or using the CLASSICXREF command in AutoCAD 2007):

AutoCAD 2007:

Now your Xref name may not match the name of the file you browsed to, but you can easily fix that with the RENAME command, or by hitting F2 when the Xref is selected in the Xref dialog. This same methodology works for repathing/renaming Images too.

A Quick Tip on Quick Leader

2006-11-21T12:01:00.000-06:00

AutoCAD Leaders automatically add a tail if the angle of the leader is greater than 15 degrees from horizontal. The length of the tail is the same as the size of the arrowhead.

Don't draw the tails! Why? Because, by default, Leaders are associated with the Text. This means that if you ever move the Text, the Leader automatically goes with it. In the image below the grey objects indicate the original placement of the leaders. The leader on the left was drawn without a tail. I manually drew the tail for the leader on the right.

When the text is moved, as represented by the black objects, the last drawn point of the leader follows the text. If this point gets away from horizontal, AutoCAD adds the tail for you automatically.

If you don't like the way that AutoCAD draws or manages the leader tails for you, your only recourse is to not use associative leaders. You have to place your text, then come back later and draw the leaders, hitting Esc when prompted for text. Leaders do not honor DIMASSOC (or DIMASO).

Three Ways to Explode

2006-11-14T19:00:00.000-06:00

Let the destruction begin.

The AutoCAD EXPLODE command allows you to convert complex objects to their constituent components. Explode Mtext to get Text. Explode Plines, Mlines, Hatches, Dimensions and Leaders into Lines, Arcs, Text, etc. Explode Blocks to their component parts.

Exploding a Block sometimes gives us undesirable results. Often a Block is created from entities on Layer 0, so that it can be inserted on any Layer and thus inherit the properties of the insertion Layer. When exploding a Block of this type, all the components revert back to Layer 0.

The XPLODE command started life as a Bonus Tool and has since achieved command status. XPLODE works similarly to EXPLODE except it gives you the opportunity to override component entity properties. You can control the target Layer, Line type, Line weight, and Color, or Inherit all properties from the Block insertion.

If you're exploding a Block with Attributes, the Attributes revert to the Attribute definitions. Of course this results in the loss of their text value. The Express Tool BURST allows you to explode an Attributed Block to the insertion Layer and convert the Attributes to Text.


Block	EXPLODE Entities revert to Layer 0, Attribs revert to AttDefs	XPLODE Entities inherit Block Layer, Attribs revert to AttDefs	BURST Entities inherit Block Layer, Attribs become Text and keep previous values

So between all these Exploding options you should be able to achieve your desired results. Now for the million dollar question: Why are you exploding things anyway?

eTransmit

2006-11-07T17:50:00.000-06:00

Use the AutoCAD ETRANSMIT command to bundle up your drawing and all of its dependencies for delivery to a client or consultant. File > eTransmit gives you the Create Transmittal dialog.This dialog displays a listing of the drawing and its dependencies (Xrefs, Images, Fonts, Pen Tables, etc.). Use the Transmittal Setups... button to create named jobs with specific transmittal parameters.

In this example we're creating a named Transmittal Setup called to2002 in which we:

Send all files to a folder. (We could alternatively create a ZIP file at this step.)
Convert our files to AutoCAD 2000 format.
We are also opting to set the default plotter to 'none' so our consultant/client doesn't get those annoying plotter not found errors.
Lastly, we're binding the Xrefs as we create the transmittal.

Now, anytime we wish to create a transmittal of this, or any other drawing, using this setup, it is immediately available to us from the Create Transmittal dialog.

You can also execute eTransmit from the sheet set by right-clicking on the selected sheet(s), subset(s), or sheet set name and choosing eTransmit... from the menu.

There are a couple of important distinctions between creating transmittals from the Sheet Set as opposed to using the eTransmit command:

You can transmit multiple sheets using the Sheet Set method.
eTransmit from the Sheet Set references Transmittal Setups stored in the DST as opposed to the current user. This makes them immediately accessible to everyone on the team.

This Sheet Set transmittal information is coming from the current Sheet Set as opposed to the first image where it's based on the current user.

AutoCAD in a Networked Environment

2006-10-17T09:13:00.000-05:00

AutoCAD "Out of the Box" is not tuned to perform particularly well in a LAN/WAN environment. This tip is about ways to make AutoCAD respond faster in a networked environment.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Autodesk's Infamous Explorer Shell Extension

Since Autodesk included the ability to add digital signatures to drawings, they've also included an Explorer shell extension that allows Explorer to display signed .DWG files with a different icon than unsigned .DWG files. When Explorer lists .DWG files in a folder, it has to examine each file to determine whether or not it is signed and then display the correct icon. This takes time. On your local workstation's folders the extra time is insignificant; however on a LAN the lag is noticeable, and across the WAN the lag can be crippling. The Explore lag occurs in AutoCAD File Dialogs as well as just plain Explorer.

By default this shell extension is installed and enabled with any Autodesk product. To disable it, right-click on any .DWG file and choose "Enable/Disable Digital Signature Icons" from the menu. In the Signature Validation Options dialog uncheck the "Validate digital signatures and display special icons" check box. Click OK. Reboot.

Any AutoCAD product install or update will re-enable this shell extension, so you may get to do this more than one time. Anytime your browser access becomes slow, check this setting.

Disabling the the digital signature icon display does not invalidate a drawing's digital signature. End users are still notified on Open that they're opening a signed drawing.

Bad Printers

AutoCAD products make use of your Windows system printers. If you have a "bad" printer, AutoCAD's PLOT and OPTIONS dialogs take a long time to display as the system tries to validate the bad printer. Use Start > Printers and Faxes to ensure that all of your printers are correct, i.e. delete the invalid ones.

Bad Links

Invalid folders in Options or bad links will also cause significant slow downs as Windows tries to follow the bad links.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sheet Set Manager

My company has come to rely heavily on the Sheet Set Manager (SSM). However, it appears to have scalability issues. This means that the more users accessing a Sheet Set Data Set (DST) at a time, the slower its overall performance becomes. So be sure to close the DST if you're not using it. Closing the SSM is not the same as closing the DST. To actually release the DST, you must right-click on the sheet set name in the SSM and select Close Sheet Set from the menu.

Sheet Set System Variables

There are some AutoCAD system variables that affect the SSM:

SSMAUTOOPEN
Saved in: User settings
Initial value: 1

Automatically opens the sheet set when a drawing associated with a sheet is opened. To prevent AutoCAD from opening a DST automatically, I recommend setting this value to 0 (zero) in a multi-user environment.

SSMSHEETSTATUS
Saved in: Registry
Initial value: 2

Controls how the status data (whether sheets are opened, missing, etc.) in a sheet set is refreshed. A value of 2 causes the sheet set display to refresh based on the interval set by SSMPOLLTIME (default 60 secs). A value of 1 causes the sheet set display to refresh when the sheet set is updated. Both of these settings will generate traffic on the network. I recommend you set this to 0 (zero, Off) and refresh the display yourself as necessary. There's a tiny little button on the SSM specifically for refresh. Alternatively, you could increase the interval specified by SSMPOLLTIME and leave SSMSHEETSTATUS at the default of 2.

Purge

2006-10-10T13:05:00.000-05:00

This tip deals with two nuances of the Purge command. The Purge command allows you to delete unused Blocks, Styles, Layers, Shapes and Linetypes from your drawing. (Don't worry; references in use are not removed.)

Typing PURGE at the command Line, or File > Drawing Utilities > Purge, yields the Purge dialog. From here you can choose individual items to purge or Purge All unused items at once. The default settings are to "Confirm each item to be purged" and not to "Purge nested items." In my view this is erring on the side of caution and I'd recommend reversing these two settings.

Nuance 1: What if you want to purge unused Blocks and Plot Styles but keep your unused Layers and Dimension Styles against future use? Rather than purge items one by one, use the Ctrl key to select all the items you wish to purge. You can select individual items or groups. Then use the Purge button (not the Purge All) to purge only the selected items.

Nuance 2: There's another purgeable item that's only available from the command line and must be specified separately (i.e. not as part of a Purge All). Registered applications are applications outside of the base ACAD.EXE program that are used to expand AutoCAD's core functionality. These apps sometimes become unused as the entities, settings, tables, etc. that they're responsible for are removed from the drawing. So they too should be periodically purged to help maintain your drawing's health and well being. To purge registered apps type -PURGE at the command line.

Command: -PURGE
Enter type of unused objects to purge
[Blocks/Dimstyles/.../Regapps/All]: R
Enter name(s) to purge <*>: *
Verify each name to be purged? [Yes/No] : N
Deleting registered application "RAK".
Deleting registered application "ACAUTHENVIRON".
Deleting registered application "AcDbDynamicBlockTrueName".
3 registered applications deleted.

Bonus Tip: You can list registered applications in your drawing with a simple bit of AutoLISP. Repeatedly enter (tblnext "APPID") at the command line to step through the registered applications table. Or, if you have the Express Tool DBVIEW, you can view the Registered Applications Table in a nice AutoCAD Database Viewer dialog.

Scale List Edit

2006-10-03T08:45:00.000-05:00

One of my all-time favorite AutoCAD toolbars is the Viewports toolbar. This little gem lets you do all manner of Viewport operations: make Viewports, make non-rectangular Viewports, clip Viewports, and quickly set or view the Zoom Scale factor of a Viewport.

When choosing the Viewport scale you are not limited to the scales listed in the drop down. You can type in your own desired scale in the edit box. You can also edit the list of available scales with the SCALELISTEDIT command.

The Edit Scale List dialog lets you add your own scales to the list. You can move scales up and down in the list, delete entries, put your favorites first, or put those pesky metric scales at the end of the list. (Who uses metric anyway?)

Don't worry about messing up the list of scales; you can always use the Reset button to return this list to factory defaults. Changes made to this list of scales also affect the scales available in the Plot dialog.

Layer States

2006-09-26T12:43:00.000-05:00

Named layer states allow you to quickly restore saved Layer settings. Access the Layer States Manager dialog from the Layer dialog.

Click the New... button, to create a named "snapshot" of all the current layer settings. This snapshot includes the current viewport layer visibility status.

Use the Restore button to restore the desired settings of the selected named layer state. Check on the layer properties you wish to restore from the selected saved layer state. You can turn off layers not found in layer state to ensure that layers added after the layer state was saved are not displayed, giving you the exact look of the drawing when the layer state was created.

Layer states are stored within the drawing but can be exported for use in other drawings. Note that Xref layers are also saved in layer states. Xref layers have the name form:

xref_name¦layer_name

Because the reference name is part of the layer name, fully restoring layer states from one drawing to another is possible only if they share identical references.

Quick Note on this Tip:

WARNING! Extreme Techno-Babble.

The AutoCAD Express Tool LMAN (Layer Manager) introduced back in Release 14 has heretofore been the method for saving layer states. This tool, while still part of the Express Tools package, is obsolete and it is recommended that it not be used. Use the layer states built into the AutoCAD Layer command instead. The technical reason for this is in the efficiency and reliability of the underlying code. The new layer states are stored as discreet entries in a dictionary (non-graphical object). The old LMAN layer states are stored as extended entity data attached to the Layers. This can make purging layers impossible until first deleting the saved layer states and purging the LMAN application (RAK).

Drag-and-Drop

2006-09-19T09:24:00.000-05:00

Windows drag-and-drop functionality can be used in AutoCAD with several file types. Open AutoCAD and Windows Explorer and tile them so that you can see both applications on your screen. Locate a file in Explorer, click and hold the mouse button down as you drag it into the AutoCAD drawing editor. The behavior of this operation varies depending on the file type you are dragging into your drawing. In the example above, dragging a text file (.txt) yields an Mtext entity. Dragging an Excel Spreadsheet (.xls) or Word Document (.doc) will place an OLE object.

You can also drag entities from drawing to drawing (or from application to drawing). Tile or Cascade your open drawing windows in AutoCAD. Select an entity in one drawing and drag it into the other drawing.

Dragging with the right-click gives you a context menu when you drop the file or entity. For example, if you right-click drag a drawing file (.dwg) from Explorer, you can choose to Insert as block, Open, Xref, or Create a Hyperlink to the file.

The chart below shows some file types germane to AutoCAD and the results of drag-and-drop.

File Type	Left-click Drag	Right-click Drag
.DWG, .DWS, .DWT	Insert	Insert, Open, Xref, Create Hyperlink Note: Xref only works for DWGs
.TXT	Mtext
.DST	Opens Sheet Set
.SCR	Runs Script
.LSP	Loads LISP file
Image files: .JPG, .CAL, .TIF, etc.	Attaches Image
.DOC, .XLS	OLE	Move, Copy, Link, Create Hyperlink

Divide and Measure

2006-09-12T13:19:00.000-05:00

The Divide and Measure commands allow you to place markers along an entity dividing it into a given number of segments or given segment lengths respectively. By default either command places Nodes (Points) along the divided/measured entity.

The example below uses the MEASURE command to place Nodes along a Pline at 5' increments. Setting PDMODE to 3 and PDSIZE to 2 controls the display of the Nodes, in this case making them appear as an X.

Handy? Maybe. But, you can also use a Block for your marker making these commands even more useful.

The following example uses MEASURE to create a sidewalk with joints. Create a Block named SWJT (sidewalk joint) that is a 4' vertical Line with the insertion point at the midpoint. Offset the Pline 2.5' on both sides to create a sidewalk.

Measure the center line of the sidewalk. Use the Block option with the SWJT Block placed at 5' increments.

Command: MEASURE
Select object to measure: [select the Pline]
Specify length of segment or [Block]: B
Enter name of block to insert: SWJT
Align block with object? [Yes/No] : Yes
Specify length of segment: 5

Finally, delete the center line.

Use this same procedure to quickly create all kinds of repetitive elements: layout parking stripes along a curve, divide an alignment with track lights, place rebar in details, etc.

Bonus Tip: Nodes or Blocks created with either Divide or Measure are placed in the previous selection set. This makes it easy to edit them. For instance, to Erase the Nodes or Blocks just created type ERASE then P for previous to select them.

Rotating your View

2006-09-05T20:53:00.000-05:00

Have you ever had that horrible experience where someone has rotated your background drawing? The first tenet of shared backgrounds is "Never Move the Background." If you need to view a background drawing in a different orientation, rotate your viewing direction, don't rotate the drawing.

You can rotate your viewing direction in Model Space or from within a Model Space Viewport. Consider the following plan:

The first thing to notice is the UCS Icon in the lower left corner of the Viewport. (If your UCS Icon is not on, let me strongly urge you to consider turning it on via the UCSICON command.) The icon indicates that the current coordinate system is World with Y increasing upwards and X increasing to the right.

Let's rotate the viewing direction to more comfortably view, plot, annotate, or work on the model.

Use the UCS command to create a User Coordinate System aligned with the building. I used the 3-point method to exactly align my UCS with the building.

Command: UCS
Current ucs name: *WORLD*
Enter an option [New/Move/.../Apply/?/World]: 3P
Specify new origin point <0,0,0>: [pick Pt1]
Specify point on positive ... X-axis: [pick Pt2]
Specify point on positive-Y... of the UCS XY plane:
[pick Pt3]

Notice the UCS Icon and crosshairs are now aligned with the building.

Once the User Coordinate System is established, use the PLAN command to view this UCS in Plan view (i.e. with Y up and X to the Dexter.) You'll have to rescale the Viewport afterwards as PLAN always Zooms to Extents.

You can leave the UCS set, or return to World coordinates, depending on your needs.

Alternate Method: The old DVIEW command with the Twist option will rotate the viewing direction without rescaling the Viewport, but you must know the rotation value because you cannot "show" it to the DVIEW command by picking points.

Non-Rectangular Viewports

2006-08-29T21:26:00.000-05:00

Use the MVIEW Polygonal and Object features to create non-rectangular viewports. Viewports can be created from any closed AutoCAD object. The easiest way to access these options is by using my favorite new toolbar, the Viewports toolbar.
Let's quickly walk through each of the buttons on this toolbar. Ignore the first button, it merely brings up the Viewport dialog. The second button creates a normal rectangular Viewport. Button three lets you draw a non-rectangular Viewport, similar to drawing a Pline. The fourth button converts an existing closed object (circle, pline, etc.) to a Viewport. The last button is similar in that it lets you clip an existing rectangular Viewport against a closed object. The drop down list at the end of the toolbar lets you easily scale your Viewport to common zoom scale factors. It either scales the active Viewport or the selected Viewport. You can type in your own zoom scale factors if they're not in the drop down list; e.g. 1:60.

Use the Polygonal Viewport button and the Convert Object button to create the following non-rectangular Viewports. The Polygonal one is drawn. The circular one is a Circle that is selected for conversion to a Viewport.
If you LIST either of these Viewports, you see that they are a unique element; they're both a Polyline or Circle and a Viewport. Because they are also AutoCAD objects, they can be edited just like objects. You can PEDIT the Pline Viewport, and grip edit both objects.

But what else can you do to these objects? Draw a Line across the circular Viewport and using the TRIM command, select the Line as your trim boundary, trim the Circle, then erase the Line.
The result is a Viewport from an Arc. Friends, one ought not be allowed to do this! You cannot select an Arc to convert to a Viewport, so why should AutoCAD allow you to trim a Circle bound to a Viewport? That's just asking for trouble.

A Bonus exercise for the reader: see if you can figure out how to achieve this Viewport:
This is a single viewport with a circular void in it; see how the crosshairs pass behind the circular region?

The Layer Translator

2006-08-23T12:14:00.000-05:00

Change AutoCAD drawing layers from one standard to another using the Layer Translator. This former Express Tool has been added to the standard AutoCAD toolset.

Pull down menu: Tools > CAD Standards > Layer Translator...
Command: LAYTRANS

The Layer Translator dialog lists the Layers of the current drawing in the Left pane. The right pane lists the target Layers. You populate the right pane by loading Layers from an existing drawing, template, or drawing standards file. You can also add new Layers on the fly using the "New..." button.

In the left pane select a Layer to translate, in the right pane select a Layer to translate to, and click the "Map" button; a Layer Translation Mapping list is created in the lower pane. Multiple Layers can be mapped to the same target Layer. This mapping is then applied with the "Translate" button, and/or saved to a drawing standards file (DWS) with the "Save" button. Layer Mappings loaded from a DWS automatically populate the Layer Translation Mappings pane.

Translated Layers take on the properties of the destination Layer. Mapped Layers are removed from the current drawing. The "Map same" button can be used to map all current Layers to Layers of the same name, effectively changing their properties to match the target Layer properties.

The "Settings..." button gives you even more control over Layer translation.

The default settings allow you to change the properties of objects on a Layer to Color ByLayer and Linetype ByLayer during translation. Objects nested within blocks are also translated.

You can cause the Layer Translator to display the contents of each Layer as you're remapping (similar to the old Layer Walk Express Tool).

Using Scripts to Automate Layer settings

2006-08-15T15:02:00.000-05:00

Scripts are used to automate repetitive tasks in AutoCAD. A good example for this would be modifying layer settings.

If you can type it, you can Script it. This means that you'll need to become familiar with the command line versions of several AutoCAD commands. To run the command line version of a dialog driven command, like LAYER, you prefix the command with a dash: -LAYER

So here's a typical scenario: You attach an architectural floor plan background to your drawing. Now you want to set all or some of the layers to a screened Color or Plot Style. You also want to Freeze all the architectural background Layers except those germane to your discipline. If the architect later adds a Layer to their background, and it now inconveniently shows up in your drawing, you can simply rerun the Script to Freeze it, restoring your drawing to the desired display state.

Use Notepad (or your favorite text editor) to create the Script ALAY.SCR; it must have the extension .SCR to be recognized as an AutoCAD Script. Enter the following lines (or similar):

LAYER C 51
*|A-*
C 2
*|A-AREA-IDEN
F
*|A-*
T
*|A-AREA-IDEN*,*|A-DOOR-*,*|A-WALL-FULL*,etc.

Let's look at the Script line by line.

Line 1 executes the Layer command, specifies the Color option and selects Color 51.
Line 2 uses wildcards to apply Color 51 to all Layers that are both Xref dependent (includes a "|") and start with A-.
Lines 3 and 4 similarly reset the Room Number Layer to Color 2.
Lines 5 and 6 Freeze all Xref Layers that begin with A-.
The last two lines then Thaw all the Layers we want to display in our background, using wildcards where appropriate.

Some notes on our script:

Execute the Script by typing SCRIPT and selecting ALAY.SCR from the Open dialog, or drag-and-drop the Script from Explorer, or put the Script on a Tool Palette.
Notice that I didn't use -LAYER in the script; AutoCAD is smart enough to use the command line version of commands when called from a Script.
Wildcards can be asterisks or question marks. Asterisks match multiple characters and question marks match a single character.
Spaces act as enters in Scripts (similar to how they do at the command line), except where AutoCAD expects text entry then spaces are allowed (as in Layer names). That's why our Layer name entries are all on separate lines.
The Layer command needs an additional Enter to exit the command, so be sure to include an extra blank line at the bottom of your Script.

Hyperlinks 404

2006-08-08T11:12:00.000-05:00

You can attach hyperlinks to graphic objects in your AutoCAD drawing. Hyperlinks are accessed by hovering over an entity; a hyperlink icon is displayed. Now, either Ctrl-Click to follow the link, or select the object, right-click, and select Hyperlink from the menu.

Hyperlinks can be links to websites (URLs). They can be email links. They can also be links to external files.

To add a hyperlink to an entity: select the entity, then either press Ctrl-K, or click on the Insert menu and choose Insert Hyperlink.

Enter the URL, email address, or file name. You can also select from Recent Files, previously Browsed Pages, or previously Inserted Links. You can set the Target location to take you to a named View in the current or linked (target) drawing. In the example above, a hyperlink is added to the column bubbles and linked to an external text file that has relevant notes regarding the grid for the project.

Another use of hyperlinks is adding "tool tips" to entities. For example add a hyperlink to a column line. Type the Column Number for the web page name. Now, when you hover over the column line, its designation appears like a tool tip so that, even if the column bubble designation is not visible on the screen, you still know which column you're working with.

Toggling TILEMODE

2006-08-01T14:25:00.000-05:00

To switch between Paper Space and Model Space, AutoCAD expects you to toggle the value of TILEMODE, either by entering TILEMODE at the command line and changing its value (0=OFF, 1=ON), or clicking on the Model/Layout tabs at the bottom of the drawing editor.

The downside to both of these methods is that AutoCAD does nothing to handle Linetype Scaling.

Why is resetting LTSCALE important?

If you toggle TILEMODE without accounting for LTSCALE, either your linetypes will fail to display in Paper Space because they're too large, or they'll be far too small and generate many times more segments than are needed for Model Space. This can drastically impact performance by using up a significant amount of your resources just to hold the display list.

When PSLTSCALE is 1 (On), Paper Space Viewports automatically apply the inverse of the Viewport Zoom scale factor (times the LTSCALE) as the linetype scale for entities in that Viewport.

You can create a menu button for changing Paper/Model Space that not only toggles TILEMODE but resets the LTSCALE and PSLTSCALE beforehand. Your AutoLISP code for this button might look something like this:

(if (zerop (getvar "TILEMODE"))
   (progn
      (initget 7)
      (setvar "LTSCALE" (getint "\nLTSCALE: "))
      (setvar "TILEMODE" 1))
   (progn
      (setvar "LTSCALE" 1)
      (setvar "PSLTSCALE" 1)
      (setvar "TILEMODE" 0)))

This code snippet checks the current value of TILEMODE. If it's 0 (zero) it means you're currently in Paper Space so it prompts you for a target LTSCALE value, then toggles to Model Space. If TILEMODE is not 0 (zero) you're in Model Space, so it sets LTSCALE to 1, enables Paper Space linetype scaling, then toggles to Paper Space.

(You could add additional program code to try to divine the target LTSCALE for you rather than stopping to prompt you, but that's more than I want to get into in this post.)

In the image above TILEMODE=0 (Paper Space) with PSLTSCALE=1 and LTSCALE=1; the linetypes for entities in the scaled Viewports and the entities in Paper Space all display correctly.

Using a Field to Display the Viewport Scale

2006-07-25T11:01:00.000-05:00

You can insert a Field and link it to a Viewport object to display, and automatically update, the Viewport's Zoom Scale Factor.

Insert a Block with Attributes, or just create a piece of Text. Edit the Attribute. Right-click the value and choose insert Field.

In the Field dialog (below), set your Field category to Objects, Set Field names to Object, and click the Select Object Button. Select the Viewport. You'll be returned to the Field dialog; choose Custom scale from the Property column, and choose the desired Format. The Preview area will show the results. Clicking OK will update the Attribute.

In this case we see that my Viewport Zoom Scale Factor is 31/256" = 1'-0" which is close but incorrect. Rescaling the Viewport to 1/8" = 1'-0" and Regenerating the drawing updates the Field.

Now you can see at a glance, whether on the screen or on a plot, whether the Viewport scale is correct.

In AutoCAD 2006 and up, Tab means AutoComplete.

2006-07-18T12:33:00.000-05:00

Do you have trouble remembering those arcane AutoCAD commands or system variables? Do you hate typing in those long command names?

Type the first few letters of the command or system variable desired and press the TAB key. AutoCAD cycles through all the commands that start with those letters with each press of the TAB key. When you get to the one you want, press Enter.

The more letters you enter initially, the fewer matches AutoCAD will need to cycle through.

Bonus: If you overshoot the desired command, use Shift+TAB to back up.

Field Variables

2006-07-11T08:20:00.000-05:00

There are two important variables that affect AutoCAD Fields.

FIELDDISPLAY determines whether Fields display the gray background that distinguishes them from other Text. This background is a visual cue only and does not plot. This variable can be 0 (Off) or 1 (On), and is stored in the Registry (i.e. set it once and it is set in all drawings).

FIELDEVAL controls how Fields are updated. This variable is stored in the drawing, and has the following values:

0 - Not updated
1 - Updated on Open
2 - Updated on Save
4 - Updated on Plot
8 - Updated on eTransmit
16 - Updated on Regen

The default value for this variable is 31 which updates on all events, (this is from adding up all the possible event integers: 1+2+4+8+16=31). If you have a drawing with many Fields and it takes a significant amount of time to update, set FIELDEVAL to 15 to turn "off" update on Regen, but still update Fields on all other events. Or you may have a drawing where Fields are not updating as you expect; check the value of FIELDEVAL.

Bonus: Use Lisp to create shortcuts to toggle or set these variables quickly.

; toggle FIELDDISPLAY ON/OFF
(defun c:fd () (setvar "FIELDDISPLAY" (abs (1- (getvar "FIELDDISPLAY")))))

; reset FIELDEVAL to update on all events
(defun c:fe () (setvar "FIELDEVAL" 31))

Using Unicode

2006-07-03T09:14:00.000-05:00

You can insert a number of special symbols into Mtext. In the Mtext editor select the symbol icon "@" on the formatting toolbar to get the symbols menu.

But what if you want to insert a symbol not in this list? There are a number of characters in most fonts that can be inserted with some good old fashioned arcane syntax. Notice all the \U+xxxx codes on the menu? Those are the Unicode values for the symbol.

Let's say you wanted to use the less than or equal to symbol. It's not available from AutoCAD's list of symbols, but it is defined in the ROMANS text font. It's Unicode value is \U+2264. How does one find this value? Use the Windows Character Map (Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map).

In Character Map select the True Type equivalent of the AutoCAD font you're using in your drawing. Locate the desired symbol from the font; it's Unicode value is displayed in the lower left corner of the dialog.

In the Mtext Editor type this Unicode value where you wish to insert the symbol. The special symbol will appear immediately.

Cycling Among Open Drawings

2006-06-28T21:55:00.000-05:00

Many of the users at work use a third party application such as Tony Tanzillo's AcadXTabs, or CADWerx's DocBar, to manage open drawings. These apps create a tabbed list of open drawings making it easy to switch between them by clicking a named tab.
These applications are no longer freeware. They have become popular enough that the authors are charging for their use and maintenance. The last free versions available will continue to operate in AutoCAD versions from 2000 to 2006. There is not a freeware version of these apps available for AutoCAD 2007. At this time I do not know of another free solution. (Does anyone know of such a program?) If you've grown too dependant on these apps to lose them, you're going to have to convince your local management to purchase a seat for your workstation.

There are alternative methods for cycling among open drawings. Perhaps one of these methods will satisfy your needs:

TASKBAR

The TASKBAR system variable can set to 1 (on) which causes each open drawing to appear as a button on the task bar. The default condition is 0 (off) where only the current drawing is shown on the task bar. The button sizes vary depending on the number of open drawings, the height or position of the task bar, and whether the "Group similar task bar buttons" options is on or off in the task bar properties. Enabling TASKBAR allows you to use Alt+Tab to cycle among open drawings.

Ctrl-Tab

This key combination cycles through open drawings. Ctrl-Shift-Tab reverses the cycle direction. You can also use Ctrl+F6 and Ctrl+Shift+F6.

Alt-W

With the ACAD menu loaded, this key combination activates the Window menu pull down, (just as if you had clicked on it). The open drawings are listed, and can be selected from the bottom of this pull down.

Trim/Extend

2006-06-21T14:07:00.000-05:00

Did you know that the TRIM and EXTEND commands are just two faces of the same coin? This tip examines some of the aspects of these two-faced commands.

Flip-flop

When using Trim, hold down the Shift key and you're in Extend mode; the current Cutting edges temporarily become Boundary edges. The converse is also true: in Extend, hold down Shift to Trim.

Too Many Edges

If you simply hit Enter when prompted to select Cutting or Boundary edges, ALL entities become edges, even entities within Blocks and Xrefs.

Over the Edge

The Edge mode allows you to Trim/Extend to implied edges. Implied edges are boundaries that would intersect your entities if the boundaries were long enough.

Command: TRIM
Current settings: Projection=UCS, Edge=None
Select cutting edges ...
Select objects or <select all>: [select vertical line]
Select object to trim or shift-select to extend or
[Fence/Crossing/Project/Edge/eRase/Undo]: E
Enter an implied edge extension mode [Extend/No extend]
<No extend>: E
Select object to trim or shift-select to extend or
[Fence/Crossing/Project/Edge/eRase/Undo]:
[select horizontal lines]

in the example above, Trimming/Extending the horizontal lines to the vertical boundary with Edge mode set to Extend yields the following result:

The edge mode is stored in the EDGEMODE system variable.

"I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV..."

There's also a Projection mode to control how trimming and extending behaves with 3D entities that don't actually intersect, but appear to intersect, in various projections.

The setting for the projection mode is stored in the system variable PROJMODE and has the following values:

0 - True 3D mode (no projection)
1 - Project to the XY plane of the current UCS
2 - Project to the current view plane

Control Mtext Line Spacing

2006-06-13T09:11:00.000-05:00

Have you ever placed two Mtext entities and noticed that one has a different line spacing than the other? Or have you converted Text to Mtext and the line spacing changed? This tip is all about controlling line spacing in Mtext.

What controls the line spacing? For Dtext, the line space is defined within the font. For Mtext, the font definition is ignored, and AutoCAD uses the 5/3rds rule for spacing; this means that the spacing between text baselines is 5/3rds the height of the text.
By default the MTEXT command uses the line space setting "At least" to apply the 5/3 rule to the total height of the text; this includes ascenders and descenders that reach above the character height and below the text baseline. You can use the "Exactly" setting to ignore the ascenders and descenders, applying the 5/3 rule to only the base character height. In the example above, the left Mtext uses the default setting of "At least" and the right uses "Exactly." Note how the left Mtext's line spacing starts to increase on the third line, which contains backslashes, and again on the last line with the apostrophe.

To change the default Mtext line spacing, start the MTEXT command, select your start point for the Mtext bounding box, but before picking the other corner, issue the "Line spacing" option:

Command: MTEXT
MTEXT Current text style: "Standard" Text height: 1
Specify first corner: [pick a point]
Specify opposite corner or [Height/Justify/Line spacing/Rotation/Style/Width]: L
Enter line spacing type [At least/Exactly] <At least>: E
Enter line spacing factor or distance <1x>: [enter]
Specify opposite corner or [Height/Justify/Line spacing/Rotation/Style/Width]: [pick other corner]

Once set, this value stays set and doesn't need to be set again. It is stored in the TSPACETYPE system variable.

You can also modify existing Mtext's spacing type using the Properties palette and changing the "Line space style."

If you must have Mtext line spacing match Dtext line spacing, you can accomplish this with the "line spacing factor or distance" in the Mtext options (see prompts above). This value is stored in the TSPACEFAC system variable, which defaults to 1 and is not saved in the drawing or registry.

Zoom to Objects

2006-06-06T07:57:00.000-05:00

Another command prompt option snuck into the ZOOM command in AutoCAD 2006. The Object option allows you to zoom up on selected objects.

Command: ZOOM
Specify corner of window, enter a scale factor (nX or nXP), or
[All/Center/Dynamic/Extents/Previous/Scale/Window/Object] <real>: O
Select objects:

ZOOM Object with two entities selected

Display after ZOOM Object

AutoCAD resizes the display to "fit" the selected entities.

Change the Block Insertion Point on the Fly

2006-06-01T13:58:00.000-05:00

How often do you read your AutoCAD prompts? The Basepoint option is a little gem that snuck into the AutoCAD 2006 INSERT command. This option allows you to override the Block's insertion point with a base point of your own while you're placing the block.

Command: INSERT
Enter block name or [?] : [block name here, or from dialog]
Specify insertion point or [Basepoint/Scale/Rotate/PScale/PRotate]: B
Specify base point: [pick new base point]
Specify insertion point: [place the block]

Note: You only get the "Specify insertion point:" prompt if you tell the insertion dialog to specify insertion point "On-screen".

Once you've placed the block, highlight it. Notice that you haven't changed the actual insertion point; the base point override was only for the initial placement.

The other options available at the insertion point prompt have been there for some time, but are still pretty cool. You can set the Scale and Rotation before placing the block. This allows you to drag the block at the new scale and rotation, which can be helpful in visualizing its placement. You won't be prompted again for these values once you pick the insertion point. If you want to be prompted again, use the PScale or PRotation options instead.

Convert Text to Mtext

2006-05-22T09:07:00.000-05:00

Due to a trip to Iowa to see my cousin Jeremy marry, last week's CAD tip is a little late.

The AutoCAD Express Tool TXT2MTXT converts individual Text entities to a single Mtext entity.

Pull down menu: Express > Text > Convert Text to Mtext
Command: TXT2MTXT
Select text objects, or [Options] : [select Text]

converts these Text entities

to this Mtext entity

Well, that wasn't quite what was expected. By default the conversion runs the text together making wrapped Mtext. You can control this behavior with the TXT2MTXT Options:

uncheck Word-wrapping

to get this Mtext entity

The resultant Mtext has no width and the lines are terminated with hard returns. You can also use Options to control the sorting order of the selected Text.

Bonus Question: What is the tool to convert Mtext to Dtext?
Answer: EXPLODE

Hatching Enhancements

2006-05-09T11:53:00.000-05:00

Some nifty new features are available in AutoCAD 2006 hatching. (To display all of the features available from the Hatch dialog, be sure to expand the dialog with the more options button in the lower right corner of the dialog.)
Hatch origin - Right from the dialog you can set and reset the origin point of the hatch. This is handy for hatches that represent actual materials: brick, block, etc. It is also good for complicated hatch patterns with large coordinates. You can even automatically set the origin based on the boundary extents. The new system variable that holds the origin point is HPORIGIN. (This supplants the use of SNAPBASE to set the hatch origin.)
Boundaries - Boundaries can now be removed and added to the current boundary selection when creating new, or editing existing hatch. You can also recreate the boundary of an existing hatch.
Create separate hatches - Allows you to hatch multiple boundaries at once but each resultant island of hatch becomes a separate entity and can be edited separately. Existing hatches can also be separated.
Draw order - Hatches are now, by default, sent behind the boundary used to create them. You can override this by changing the draw order setting.
Inherit Properties - You can specify whether new hatches inherit their origin from the source hatch object or from the current origin.
Gap Tolerance - Although not technically a new feature, this one is just too good not to mention again. If your boundary doesn't close, you can treat it as closed as long as the gap is smaller than this value. What is new is that hatches created from non-closed boundaries can be associative in 2006.
Area - Hatches have a new area property. Listing the hatch displays the area that it occupies. If you have multiple hatches selected, the Cumulative area is displayed in the Geometry section of the Properties palette.

Add Project Folders to Places

2006-05-02T15:21:00.000-05:00

Create shortcuts to your frequently used project folders using the Places list along the left side of the standard AutoCAD file selection dialog box.

To add a shortcut, navigate to the desired folder and pick Tools > Add Current Folder to Places. By default, the new shortcut has the same name as the current folder. If you use a standard project folder structure this name may be next to useless, so take a moment to rename it by right-clicking on the shortcut, selecting Properties, and changing the Item name to something meaningful, like the project number.

Clicking a shortcut on the Places list takes you straight to your project CAD files. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

Bonus Tip: The Places list also has a History shortcut that allows you to quickly open previous drawings. This list can get really large. Autodesk recommends that you periodically remove unwanted history shortcuts to improve your performance.

Kitchen LISP

2006-04-25T10:44:00.000-05:00

Last week we looked at editing the ACAD.PGP to create command aliases. However, PGP defined command aliases are limited; they cannot call command options, prompt for user input, or make decisions. For instance, you couldn't define an alias for Zoom Previous in the ACAD.PGP. Using AutoLISP for command aliases is like the ACAD.PGP on steroids. LISP can pass options to a command, make decisions, and pause for user input.

Create your own LISP shortcut library file and add it to your Startup Suite using the APPLOAD command. You can create this file with Notepad, just make sure that Notepad's Save as type drop down is set to All files instead of Text Documents (*.txt), or Notepad will add a .TXT extension to your new file. You can also create/edit your user LISP file with AutoCAD's built-in LISP editor by typing VLISP at the command line.

LISP syntax can be baffling, but command aliases are relatively easy to master. To define ZP as the command alias for ZOOM Previous, the syntax would be:

(defun C:ZP () (command ".ZOOM" "P"))

In this example we define a function (defun) ZP, the C: prefix means that the function can be used as an AutoCAD command. The (command) function passes "ZOOM" and the "Previous" option to the AutoCAD command line. Now you can type ZP at the command line for ZOOM Previous. Define additional command aliases similarly. Pay attention to the location of opening and closing parenthesis and use quotes as shown.

More Examples:

; Type "ZE" to ZOOM Extents plus a bit more
(defun C:ZE ()
(command ".ZOOM" "E" ".ZOOM" "0.95x"))

; Type "LE" to LENGTHEN with the Dynamic option
(defun C:LE () (command ".LENGTHEN" "DY"))

; Type "STR" to STRETCH with the
; Crossing Polygon option
(defun C:STR () (command ".STRETCH" "CP"))

; Type "FD" to toggle ON/OFF the gray
; background display of Fields
; this bit of code shows more of the power
; of AutoLISP. Reading it backward, we use
; (getvar) to get the current value of the
; FIELDDISPLAY system variable, then we
; subtract 1 with function (1-), take the
; absolute value with (abs), and finally
; pass the result to (setvar) to set the
; new value.
(defun C:FD ()
(setvar "FIELDDISPLAY"
(abs (1- (getvar "FIELDDISPLAY")))))

Notice the explanatory comments in the code. AutoLISP ignores text following a semi-colon.

There's virtually no limit to the amount of customization you can include in your personal LISP file. For more information on LISP functions and syntax, see the Developer Help under Additional Resources of the AutoCAD Help menu.

Keyboard Shortcuts

2006-04-20T17:29:00.000-05:00

The ACAD.PGP (AutoCAD Program Parameters) loads with every AutoCAD session. This file defines keyboard aliases for AutoCAD commands and Shell commands. It typically loads from "C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2006\R16.2\enu\Support\acad.pgp", where <username> is your login name.

What if you don't like the default keyboard aliases as shipped with AutoCAD? Say you want to change "C" to be COPY rather than CIRCLE. You can modify the PGP file with your favorite text editor, like Notepad, or you can use the Express Tool ALIASEDIT to modify the default aliases:

Pull down menu: Express > Tools > Command Alias Editor...
Command: ALIASEDIT

On the Command Aliases tab, scroll down to C (CIRCLE) and click the Edit button (figure 1.) Enter COPY, or scroll to the COPY command, and click OK (figure 2.) Save and let AutoCAD reload the ACAD.PGP when prompted. Now, entering C from the keyboard executes command COPY instead of CIRCLE.

WYSIWYG Mtext Editor

2006-04-11T17:22:00.000-05:00

The AutoCAD 2006 Mtext Editor is finally a truly "what you see is what you get" editor. But, what else can it do? Answer: Indents, hanging indents, and with this comes bullets and numbering.

Use the ruler to place or modify your tabs and indents, similar to how you would do it in Word. Right-click in the editor to control the appearance of the bullets, numbers or letters.

So what are the drawbacks to the WYSIWYG editor? Well for one thing, it can be disconcerting to edit Mtext that is not at a zero rotation.

If you find it difficult to edit rotated text, you can revert to the old Mtext editor by setting the system variable MTEXTED to "Oldeditor." However, you then lose the ability to use the indents, bullets, and numbering. To regain this functionality, set MTEXTED back to "." (internal editor.)

Bonus: AutoCAD 2007 uses the system variable MTEXTFIXED=2 to edit too small, too large, or rotated text in a horizontal orientation at a reasonable size, giving us the best of both worlds.

emoving the Pefix fom adial Dimensions

2006-04-06T17:42:00.000-05:00

By default, AutoCAD prefixes Radius and Diameter dimensions with an "R" and a "Ø" symbol respectively. If you do not wish to include these symbols in your dimension string, use a null character as your prefix.

Pull down menu: Dimension > Dimstyle...
Command: DIMSTYLE

In the Dimension Style Manager, select the Dimstyle you wish to modify and click the Modify... button. In the Modify dialog go to the Primary Units tab and enter a Left Curly Brace "{" as the Prefix, and click OK. This prefixes all of your dimension text with nothing, including your Radius and Diameter dimensions whose default symbols are replaced with nothing.

If you know why a left curly brace works as a null character in dimension text, you're truly an AutoCAD aficionado. However, this is not necessarily a good thing. It won't even help you get dates.

Subscripts/Superscripts

2006-03-29T08:05:00.000-06:00

You can place superscripts or subscripts in your Mtext by cheating the Stacking options.

Mtext has several different ways to display fractions (or tolerancing.) AutoCAD calls this formatting stacking. By default, Mtext displays fractions entered with a forward slash as vertically stacked, fractions using the number sign as diagonally stacked, and fractions (or tolerances) with a caret as vertically stacked with no line.

Notice the last option. What would happen if we stacked something without a value on one side of the caret? Yep, we get a subscript or a superscript. Consider the following example Mtext:

To force stacking, highlight the caret and the text, right-click, and choose Stack from the menu. Notice in the example above that we place the caret before the subscripted text but after the superscripted text. Top and Bottom respective values are blank (that is, don't select anything.) For greater control over stacking options, select Stack Properties from the right-click menu.

AutoCAD, Stop Helping Me!

2006-03-26T21:50:00.000-06:00

Controlling the Insertion Units

New system variables were introduced with the advent of the AutoCAD Design Center (ADC) in AutoCAD 2002. When you drag and drop a block or drawing from the ADC into your current drawing, AutoCAD examines the values of INSUNITS in both the block and the current drawing and, depending on the value, automatically rescales the block appropriately.

For example: Using the ADC, if you drag a 2x4 light fixture symbol with an INSUNITS setting of 1 (Inches) into your current metric drawing which has an INSUNITS setting of 4 (Millimeters), the light fixture block is automatically rescaled by 25.4, converting it to the metric equivalent of this English sized light fixture.

Autodesk, in their finite wisdom, decided that this was such a clever feature they would extend it to all insertion operations in AutoCAD 2006. Now, when you INSERT a Block, or XATTACH a drawing, AutoCAD reads the INSUNITS of the source and target drawings and calculates a rescale factor for you. This rescale factor is then multiplied by the Scale you enter to yield the final insertion scale of the Block or Xref.

This can be handy, if you know about it and know how to make it work for you, but frustrating if you don't. So pay attention to the Block Unit area of the Insert and Xref Attach dialogs to see if AutoCAD is "helping" you determine the proper insertion scale factor. If the resultant scale is incorrect, adjust the setting of INSUNITS in both the source and target drawings before Inserting or Attaching it.

Some of the more common INSUNITS settings include:
0 = Unspecified (No units)
1 = Inches
2 = Feet
4 = Millimeters
6 = Meters

AutoCAD uses the values stored in system variables INSUNITSDEFSOURCE and INSUNITSDEFTARGET if INSUNITS is Unspecified.

A whole program in a single Tip: Autodesk Reference Manager

2006-03-24T17:58:00.000-06:00

This application allows you to modify the paths to Xrefs in multiple drawings at once. This program runs external to AutoCAD. To launch it, choose Start > Programs > Autodesk > AutoCAD 2006 > Reference Manager
Use the Add Drawings button from the toolbar to add multiple drawings to the Reference Manager. The example below shows three drawings in the left pane. The right pane shows the reference types within these drawings: Xrefs, Plot Styles, Fonts. Note that there are four Xrefs in three Host Drawings.
Let's say you received these drawings and associated Xrefs from a consultant, and you filed the Xrefs in the Models folder, and the drawings in a Sheets folder. Now you want to change the Saved Paths for all the drawings at once. In the right pane, select the Xrefs that you wish to modify and click on the Edit Selected Paths button on the toolbar. Change the New saved path to be the Models folder, and click OK.

Think you're done, right? Not quite. You have to click Apply Changes to actually write the modifications back to the Host Drawings.

Note: Using the AutoCAD 2006 Reference Manager to modify the reference paths of AutoCAD 2002 drawings will update the DWGs to 2006 format. There is a 2002 compatible Reference Manager available. Contact your Division CAD Coordinator if you need this application installed.

Where Are My Parents?

2006-03-24T17:45:00.000-06:00

Have you ever wanted to find what drawings a given drawing is referenced into? Say you have a floor plan background and you want to know what sheet files reference this background.

Open AutoCAD
Call up the Design Center
Pull down menu: Tools > DesignCenter, or
Command: ADCENTER
Click on the Search button to search drawings for desired criteria
In the Search dialog, Look for Xrefs, In desired folders, Search for the specific Xref name

All drawings in the designated folders that contain your Xref will be displayed in the results pane below.

Bonus Tip: You use this same method to search for drawings containing specific Blocks, Layers, Linetypes, Dimstyles, etc.

REVCLOUD Object

2006-03-23T22:44:00.000-06:00

AutoCAD's REVCLOUD draws a very nice revision cloud that somehow magically follows the cursor as you drag it around your screen, and when you get close to the start point, it automatically closes itself. This is pretty clever. But do you often wish you had a bit more control over its placement? Try this: Use the PLINE command to draw a desired bounding shape around what you're trying to cloud. Then use REVCLOUD's Object option to convert this Pline to a Revision Cloud.

Command: REVCLOUD
Minimum arc length: 1' Maximum arc length: 2' Style: Normal
Specify start point or [Arc length/Object/Style] <object>: [Enter]
Select object: [select the polyline]
Reverse direction [Yes/No] <no>: [Enter]

Revision cloud finished.