AutoCAD 2005 for Dummies

ISO (International Organization for Standardization) linetype patterns. If you don’t follow ISO standards, you’ll probably find it easier to use the linetypes with the more descriptive names: CENTER, DASHED, and so on. 

7. Click the desired linetype in the Loaded Linetypes list to select it as the linetype for the layer; then click OK.

The Select Linetype dialog box disappears, returning you to the Layer Properties Manager dialog box. In the Name list, the linetype for the selected layer changes to the linetype you just chose.

8. On the same line as the new layer, click the new layer’s lineweight.

The Lineweight dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 4-8.

Figure 4-8: The Lineweight dialog box. 

9. Select the lineweight you want from the scrolling list, then click OK.

  The lineweight 0.00 mm tells AutoCAD to use the thinnest possible lineweight on the screen and on the plot. I recommend that, for now, you leave lineweight set to Default and instead map screen color to plotted lineweight, as described briefly in the “About colors and lineweights” sidebar earlier in this chapter and in greater detail in Chapter 12.

  The default lineweight for the current drawing is defined in the Lineweight Settings dialog box. After you close the Layer Properties Manager dialog box, choose Format>Lineweight or enter LWeight at the command line to change the default lineweight.

You use the plot style property to assign a named plot style to the layer, but only if you’re using named plot styles in the drawing (Chapter 12 explains why you probably don’t want to). The final property, Plot, controls whether the layer’s objects appear on plots. Toggle this setting off for any layer whose objects you want to see on the screen but hide on plots.

10. If you want to add a description to the layer, scroll the layer list to the right to see the Description column, click twice in the Description box corresponding to your new layer, and type a description.

  Layer descriptions are a new feature of AutoCAD 2005. If you choose to use them, stretch the Layer Properties Manager dialog box to the right so that you can see the descriptions without having to scroll the layer list.

11. Repeat Steps 2 through 10 to create any other layers that you want.

12. Select the new layer that you want to make current and click the Set Current button (the green check mark).

The current layer is the one on which AutoCAD places new objects that you draw.

13. Click OK to accept the new layer settings.

The Layer drop-down list on the Layers toolbar now displays your new layer as the current layer.

After you create layers, you can set any one of them to be the current layer. Make sure that no objects are selected; then choose the layer name from the Layer drop-down list on the Layers toolbar.

After you create layers and drawn objects on them, you use the Layer Properties Manager dialog box to change layer properties. For example, you can turn a layer off or on to hide or show the objects on that layer.

  If you find yourself using lots of layers, you can create layer filters to make viewing and managing the layer list easier. AutoCAD 2005 provides two kinds of layer filters: group and property. A group filter is simply a subset of layers that you choose (by dragging layer names into the group filter name or by selecting objects in the drawing). A property filter is a subset of layers that AutoCAD creates and updates automatically based on layer property criteria that you define (for example, all layer names whose names contain the text Wall or whose color is green). To find out more, click the Help button on the Layer Properties Manager dialog box and read about the New Property Filter and New Group Filter buttons. 

A load of linetypes

My layer creation procedure demonstrates how to load a single linetype, but AutoCAD comes with a whole lot of linetypes, and there are other ways of working with them. You don’t have to go through the Layer Properties Manager dialog box to load linetypes. You can perform the full range of linetype management tasks by choosing Format>Linetype, which displays the Linetype Manager dialog box. This dialog box is similar to the Select Linetype dialog box described in the layer creation procedure, but it includes some additional options.

After you click the Load button to display the Load or Reload Linetypes dialog box, you can load multiple linetypes in one fell swoop by holding down the Shift or Ctrl key while you click linetype names. As in most Windows dialog boxes, Shift+click selects all objects between the first and second clicks, and Ctrl+click enables you to select multiple objects, even if they aren’t next to each other.

When you load a linetype, AutoCAD copies its linetype definition — a recipe for how to create the dashes, dots, and gaps in that particular linetype — from the Acad.lin (imperial units) or Acadiso.lin (metric units) file into the drawing. The recipe doesn’t automatically appear in other drawings; you have to load each linetype that you want to use into each drawing in which you want to use it. If you find yourself loading the same linetypes repeatedly into different drawings, consider adding them to your template drawings instead. (See Chapter 3 for information about templates and how to create them.) After you add linetypes to a template drawing, all new drawings that you create from that template will start with those linetypes loaded automatically.

Don’t go overboard on loading linetypes. For example, you don’t need to load all the linetypes in the Acad.lin file on the off chance that you might use them all someday. The resulting linetype list would be long and unwieldy. Most drawings require only a few linetypes, and most industries and companies settle on a half dozen or so linetypes for common use. Your industry, office, or project may have guidelines about which linetypes to use for which purposes.

If you’re the creative type and don’t mind editing a text file that contains linetype definitions, you can define your own linetypes. Choose Contents>Customization Guide>Custom Linetypes in the AutoCAD 2005 online help system.

Using AutoCAD DesignCenter

DesignCenter is a dumb name for a useful, if somewhat busy, palette. (Chapter 2 describes how to turn on and work with palettes.) The DesignCenter palette is handy for mining data from all kinds of drawings. Whereas the Properties palette, described earlier in this chapter, is concerned with object properties, the DesignCenter palette deals primarily with named objects: layers, linetypes, block (that is, symbol) definitions, text styles, and other organizational objects in your drawings.

Named objects

Every drawing includes a set of symbol tables, which contain named objects. For example, the layer table contains a list of the layers in the current drawing, along with the settings for each layer (color, linetype, on/off setting, and so on). Each of these table objects, be it a layer or some other type, has a name, so Autodesk decided to call them named objects (duh!).

Neither the symbol tables nor the named objects appear as graphical objects in your drawing. They’re like hardworking stagehands who keep the show running smoothly behind the scenes. The named objects include

? Layers (this chapter)

? Linetypes (this chapter)

? Text styles (Chapter 9)

? Dimension styles (Chapter 10)

? Block definitions and xrefs (Chapter 13)

? Layouts (Chapter 3)