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AutoCAD 2015 and AutoCAD LT 2015 Bible

The most comprehensive AutoCAD book around!

Chain dynamic blocks in AutoCAD

Dynamic blocks, introduced in AutoCAD 2006, are very powerful, but sometimes they can get complicated. One of the more involved features of dynamic blocks is chaining. In this tip, I try to make chaining easy.

Sometimes, you want one action to execute a second action at the same time. If the relationship between the two […]

“AutoCAD Block Best Practices,” an e-book by Edwin Prakoso

Edwin Prakoso has written an excellent and thorough e-book on AutoCAD blocks. In 69 pages, he covers the following:

Creating, inserting, modifying, and replacing blocks Creating and using attributes Creating annotative blocks Creating dynamic blocks, including visibility states, parameters, and constraints Extracting data from blocks Best practices examples Managing and sharing blocks

The book is […]

Working with Blocks: The BASE command, the Basepoint option, and the Basepoint parameter

Blocks and basepoints go hand-in-hand. Knowing how to work with basepoints can make your life much easier. It’s so frustrating to insert a block and have it disappear into outer space because the basepoint is in the wrong location!

The Basepoint option of the INSERT command

When you insert a block, a Basepoint option appears […]

Extract data from objects in AutoCAD 2008 and later

One of the new features in AutoCAD 2008 is data extraction. This might make you think of block attributes and data connectivity, but it combines features of both. It’s both simple and powerful.

You start with the new DATAEXTRACTION command, or by starting the TABLE command and choosing the From Object Data in the […]

Extract attributes and customize the database column headings

Attributes are labels that you apply to blocks. You can extract them to create a simple database that you can then view in Excel or place in your drawing as a table. You use the EATTEXT command.

When you use EATTEXT, the Attribute Extraction wizard starts. Page 3 of the wizard looks like this:

[…]

On which layers should you create blocks?

When you create blocks (also called symbols to insert into a drawing, you need to consider what layer to use for the components that make up the blocks. Your choice depends on the results you want and you have four choices:

Component Properties Insertion Results On any layer (except 0); color, linetype & lineweight set […]

Tutorial: Use fields to automatically label dynamic blocks

You can use fields (AutoCAD 2005 and later) to create automatic labels that provide information about objects.

I’ve covered aspects of this topic before. In “Tutorial: Display the area of an enclosed figure,” I show how to use fields to create a label that displays an area.

In “Tutorial: Create attributes,” I mention that you […]

Select all instances of a block

If you would like to see where all the instances of your comp2b block are, you can select them all using the Quick Select feature from the Properties palette. This is a great technique for troubleshooting your blocks.

Follow these steps:

Open the Properties palette. Click the Quick Select button to open the Quick Select […]

Tutorial: Create attributes

Attributes are tags, or labels, for blocks. You can use attributes to add any text to a block. For example, attributes are often used to fill in the text in a title block.

By placing the attributes where you want them in the title block, you can facilitate the entering of the text. […]

Find all named objects in a drawing

For troubleshooting or collaborative purposes, you may need to know the named objects in your drawings, that is:

Blocks Dimension styles Layers Linetypes Materials Table styles Text styles UCSs Viewports (really viewport configurations) Views Plot styles (which you see only if you’re using named plot styles)

You can see all your named objects by using […]