IntroductionWelcome| 00:00 | In design, the more information you
can get on the page to communicate your
| | 00:03 | vision, the more likely your clients
will share that vision. AutoCAD is here to help.
| | 00:12 | Welcome to AutoCAD 2009 Annotation.
My name is Jeff Bartels and it is my
| | 00:16 | privilege to be your instructor as we
explore the annotation features inside of
| | 00:20 | AutoCAD. AutoCAD has been my passion
for more than a decade. I have been using
| | 00:24 | the program professionally and
teaching AutoCAD since the days when it was a
| | 00:27 | DOS-based application.
| | 00:29 | When you think of the word annotation,
you probably think of labels. Well,
| | 00:33 | in AutoCAD, term annotation is a lot more
exciting than that. You see, annotations
| | 00:38 | in AutoCAD include text, dimensions,
multi-leaders, blocks and hatch, and any
| | 00:43 | of these objects can be inserted such
that they automatically size themselves
| | 00:47 | to our plot scale. In fact, we can
create annotative objects that size
| | 00:51 | themselves for multiple viewports, even
if the viewports are different scales.
| | 00:55 | This means we can label our geometry
one time and have that label work at any size plot.
| | 01:00 | We will start up by taking a thorough
look at the annotative object property.
| | 01:05 | We'll learn how it works, which objects
are supported and how to take advantage
| | 01:09 | of its settings. Next, we'll explore
how we can get more professional looking
| | 01:13 | results from our multi-line text. We'll
also learn how to create dynamic tables
| | 01:18 | that act similar to Microsoft Excel
and finally, we'll create some labels
| | 01:22 | called fields that are capable of
updating themselves if our drawing changes.
| | 01:27 | Well, we have got a lot of things to
explore and a lot of concepts to talk about.
| | 01:31 | So, let's get started.
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| Using the exercise files| 00:00 | If you are a Premium member of the lynda
.com Online Training Library or if you
| | 00:05 | are watching this tutorial on a disc,
you have access to the exercise files
| | 00:09 | used throughout this title.
| | 00:11 | Now, I have placed my exercise files
folder on my Desktop, you can place yours
| | 00:15 | wherever you like. I have organized
the folders based on the chapter number,
| | 00:19 | and inside that folder are all of the
drawings that we used throughout that chapter.
| | 00:24 | In some cases, if I thought it was
helpful, I left you with a finished example.
| | 00:28 | If you are a monthly or annual
subscriber to lynda.com but you don't have
| | 00:32 | access to the exercise files, you can
follow along with your own drawings.
| | 00:36 | Let's get started.
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| Synchronizing the interface| 00:01 | The first thing I would like to do
before we get started is to synchronize our
| | 00:03 | AutoCAD environments. This will help
ensure that what you see me do on my
| | 00:07 | screen will work the same way on your screen.
| | 00:09 | Now, I'm currently working with a
default installation of AutoCAD 2009.
| | 00:13 | So at this point, my screen may look a
little bit different than yours. The goal is
| | 00:17 | to set up our workspaces such that they
are reasonably identical. So, I'm going
| | 00:21 | to be asking you to make some changes
such that your system matches mine, but I
| | 00:25 | believe in the do-no-harm principle. So,
at each point along the way, I'm going
| | 00:28 | to give you the opportunity
to save your current setup.
| | 00:31 | Let's start with our workspace. A
workspace is a saved configuration of all
| | 00:35 | the tools that we see on screen. If you
would like to save your current workspace,
| | 00:40 | you can come down and click this gear
and select Save Current As from the menu,
| | 00:44 | and in this case, I'm going to call
this my original workspace and I'll click Save.
| | 00:53 | If you have done that, you have saved
your current workspace and at any point
| | 00:56 | in the future, if you would like to
return to it, you can come back down and
| | 00:59 | click this gear and just select your
workspace from the list. This is a stock
| | 01:03 | workspace that's installed with
AutoCAD 2009. Let me select this and
| | 01:08 | at this point, our screens
should look reasonably identical.
| | 01:11 | Now, I would like to make a couple of
minor modifications to this workspace.
| | 01:14 | One thing I'm going to do is remove
these two icons down at the bottom of the
| | 01:18 | screen. These guys represent our Model
Space tab and our Layout tab. We don't
| | 01:22 | need these. So, I'm going to come over
and click this flyout and then I'm going
| | 01:26 | to come up and remove the check from
Layout and Model and then I'll remove
| | 01:30 | those icons from my Status Bar.
| | 01:31 | Now, we are going to be using the
Property Changer frequently in this title.
| | 01:35 | So, I'm going to being up my Property
Changer by hitting Ctrl+1 on my keyboard,
| | 01:38 | and then I'm going to place my
cursor over this mask then I'm going to
| | 01:42 | right-click and we'll select Anchor
Left such that he stays on my screen.
| | 01:47 | At any point if I need him, I can simply
hover over this margin and he will open up
| | 01:50 | and I have access to the settings.
| | 01:53 | One more palette we'll be using
frequently is the Layer Properties palette.
| | 01:56 | Let me turn mine on by clicking this
icon in the Layers panel. Once again,
| | 02:01 | I'm going to right-click over the mask
and I'm going to select Anchor Left such
| | 02:05 | that this guy is on my screen all
the time. As you can see the top of
| | 02:09 | my margin now controls my properties
and the bottom of my margin controls my
| | 02:12 | Layer Manager. To make these guys
take up a little less space, I'm going to
| | 02:16 | right-click in the margin and select
Icons only. This reduces both palettes
| | 02:21 | down to a single icon in my interface.
| | 02:23 | All right, now that I finished my
workspace changes, let's save this workspace.
| | 02:27 | I'm going to come down and click the
gear. We'll select Save Current As and
| | 02:31 | we'll call this Lynda workspace, and
I'll click Save. This way you can always
| | 02:37 | come down and click this gear to
flip between your original and the new
| | 02:40 | workspace. Let me hit Escape to clear
the menu and now I would like to talk
| | 02:44 | about our settings. To access our
settings, we are going to bring up our
| | 02:47 | Options dialog box. To do that, I'm
going to right-click in the middle of the
| | 02:51 | screen and I'll select Options from the
menu. This is the place where we go to
| | 02:55 | adjust all of the settings that control
the way our AutoCAD functions and if I
| | 02:59 | click through these tabs, we can see
there is literally hundreds of settings available.
| | 03:02 | Now, once again, I'm going to be asking
you to make some changes. Before I do that,
| | 03:06 | I'm going to give you the
opportunity to save all of your current
| | 03:09 | settings. That is what this Profiles
tab is for. Let me select Profiles and
| | 03:14 | if you would like to save your current
settings, you can come down and click Add
| | 03:17 | to List. I'm going to call this my
original settings and I'll click Apply and
| | 03:23 | Close. At any point in the future, if
you would like to restore your settings,
| | 03:27 | you can simply come back to the
Profiles tab, select your settings from the
| | 03:31 | list and click Set Current. Now, since
we are going to be making changes,
| | 03:34 | I'm going to select Unnamed Profile such
that our changes affect this profile and
| | 03:40 | the first place I would
like to go is the Display tab.
| | 03:42 | I would like you to come down and
click the Colors button. This is the dialog box
| | 03:47 | we can use to change some of the
color properties of our interface items in
| | 03:50 | AutoCAD. I would like to change the
background color of model space. Now,
| | 03:55 | by default, those options are already
highlighted. We just need to come down and
| | 03:58 | click the Color flyout and I would
like to set this to Black. Having a black
| | 04:03 | background in model space gives us
much better contrast between our layer
| | 04:06 | colors. Let's click Apply and Close.
Notice we can see the change happen right
| | 04:10 | out here. Let's go to the Selection tab.
I would like you to come down to the
| | 04:15 | Selection Preview area and remove this
check when no command is active. This
| | 04:20 | setting causes AutoCAD to highlight
our entities just by placing our cursor
| | 04:24 | over them and that can be a little bit
confusing especially if we get into a
| | 04:27 | drawing with a lot of line work. This
way my objects will only highlight when
| | 04:31 | there is an active command.
| | 04:33 | Let's click Visual Effect settings.
This controls how our objects highlight.
| | 04:37 | I'm going to set this for Thicken only
and I'll click OK. I want to make one
| | 04:42 | more change. It is on the User
Preferences tab. I want you to come down and
| | 04:46 | click the Right-click Customization
button and make sure that all these guys are
| | 04:50 | set to Shortcut, Shortcut, Shortcut.
| | 04:52 | Now, these settings happen to be the
defaults. So, if you have never gone into
| | 04:55 | this dialog before, your settings
already match mine. Now, when I'm finished,
| | 05:00 | I'll click Apply and Close and we'll
click OK. With our settings taken care of,
| | 05:04 | we can be certain that your AutoCAD
should now function just like my AutoCAD
| | 05:08 | and we are ready to take a look at
the tutorials. Let's get started.
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|
|
1. Annotative ObjectsCreating annotative text| 00:01 | Placing text in model space has always
involved doing some math. You see if our
| | 00:05 | drawings are scaled down to fit the
paper our text types have to be scaled up
| | 00:09 | to compensate. This usually meant
getting out a calculator to figure out the
| | 00:13 | appropriate text type to use in model
space. Fortunately, we never have to do
| | 00:17 | this again because AutoCAD will
automatically size our text for us. In this
| | 00:21 | lesson, we are going to learn
how to create Annotative Text.
| | 00:23 | On my screen, I have got an
architectural floor plan and I would like to add
| | 00:27 | some text to this drawing. Let's start
up by placing some text in the master
| | 00:31 | bedroom area. Let me zoom in and
we'll center this guy on screen.
| | 00:35 | Now typically, we don't put text in a
drawing until we know our plot scale because
| | 00:39 | the size this geometry is going to
appear on paper is going to dictate how
| | 00:43 | large I should make my text.
| | 00:44 | Let's say I'm going to plot this
drawing at a quarter of an inch equals a foot.
| | 00:48 | This is a standard architectural scale.
And let's also say that I would like my
| | 00:52 | printed text to measure 3/16th of an
inch tall on my paper. Now, this is where
| | 00:56 | it becomes math problem. Trying to
figure out how tall to make my text such
| | 01:00 | that it plots at that size. Let me
show you how we can avoid doing the math
| | 01:04 | entirely. I'm going to create an
Annotative Text Style. To do that, I'm going
| | 01:08 | to come up and click my Annotate tab on
my ribbon and then I'll select the Text Style icon.
| | 01:13 | Now, I already have a few text styles
created, I'm going to create a new one by
| | 01:17 | coming over and clicking the New icon,
and I'm going to call my new style notes
| | 01:22 | and I'll click OK. Then I'm going
to come over and set this style to be
| | 01:26 | Annotative. Notice the symbol that pops
up. This tells me that this text style
| | 01:31 | is special. This one will
automatically size itself when I insert my text.
| | 01:35 | Here's how it works. Since the size is
set to be Annotative, I can simply come
| | 01:40 | over here and set the size I would
like this text to appear on my paper.
| | 01:44 | In my case that's 3/16th of an
inch and I'll click Apply and Close.
| | 01:51 | Now, whenever I want to create text
all I have to do is come down and set my
| | 01:55 | Annotation Scale to the scale at
which I'll be plotting and AutoCAD will
| | 01:59 | automatically place my text at the
correct size. Let's set this to 1/4" = 1'0".
| | 02:05 | And then we'll create some text.
I'm going to come up and click my Multi-line
| | 02:08 | Text tool, I'll click on Screen and
then I'll click again to define my column width.
| | 02:13 | Then we'll type Master Bedroom
and I'll click X to close the editor.
| | 02:19 | The text that I have created is now
appropriately sized for that plot scale.
| | 02:23 | Let's pan over to the Master Bath area.
Let's say I would like to plot this
| | 02:27 | room at a scale of three quarters of
an inch equals a foot. Once again,
| | 02:31 | no problem. I'll just come down and
change my Annotation Scale and then
| | 02:35 | I'll create some more text. Let me
launch the tool, I'll click on screen and
| | 02:40 | I'll define my column. I'll type Master
Bath and I'll close the text editor.
| | 02:46 | Notice how AutoCAD automatically scaled
my text such that it's the appropriate
| | 02:50 | height for that plot scale. Now, this
drawing already has a layout created with
| | 02:54 | some viewports. Let's take a look at it.
To get there, I'm going to come down
| | 02:57 | and click my Quick View Layouts tool,
then I'll click my Layout Preview and
| | 03:02 | then I'll click the X to dismiss the tool.
| | 03:05 | Now, this layout contains two
viewports. The one in the left is viewing my
| | 03:09 | geometry at a scale of 1/4" = 1' and
the one in the right is viewing a portion
| | 03:15 | of my geometry at a scale of 3/4" = 1'.
| | 03:19 | Let's back up a little bit and notice
that my text appears the same height in
| | 03:23 | both viewports. Never again do we have
to calculate text types when annotating
| | 03:27 | our drawings. So long as our Text
Style is set to Annotative, we can simply
| | 03:32 | select our desired Annotation Scale
and AutoCAD will automatically insert our
| | 03:36 | text at the right size.
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| Creating annotative dimensions and multileaders| 00:00 | Creating properly sized dimensions and
call-outs in model space has never been
| | 00:04 | simple. You were always required to
calculate the appropriate sizes to use
| | 00:08 | based on your plot scale. Fortunately,
we never have to do this again.
| | 00:12 | By setting our Dimension Style and our
Multileader Style to Annotative, AutoCAD
| | 00:16 | will automatically size our
dimensions and our call-outs.
| | 00:18 | On my screen, I have got a mechanical
example. This happens to be a metric
| | 00:22 | drawing and it was created such that
each unit equals one millimeter. Now,
| | 00:26 | I'm at the point where I would like to
add some dimensions to this drawing and
| | 00:29 | I would like to take advantage
of the Annotative property.
| | 00:32 | So I'm going to create an Annotative
Dimension Style. To do that, I'm going to
| | 00:35 | come up and click the Annotate tab
on my ribbon and then I'll click the
| | 00:39 | Dimension Styles icon. Now, I have
already got a couple of dimension styles in
| | 00:44 | the drawing. I'm going to create a new
one by coming over and clicking New and
| | 00:48 | I'm going to call my style
Annotative Dimensions and we'll start with the
| | 00:55 | ISO-25 settings. That way I
don't have to start from scratch.
| | 00:59 | Now, really there is no magic to
creating an Annotative Dimension Style. All we
| | 01:03 | have to do is put a check in this
box. Let's click Continue. Generally
| | 01:07 | speaking, all I have to do is set the
size values on these tabs to equal the
| | 01:11 | size that I would like my
dimensions to appear on paper.
| | 01:14 | I am going to take a look at my text
type. I'm happy with a two-and-a-half
| | 01:18 | millimeter height for my text. Let me
mention one thing about your text style.
| | 01:23 | You may wonder if it's necessary to
use an Annotative Text Style in your
| | 01:26 | Annotative Dimensions. It's not. The
fact that the Dimension Style is set to
| | 01:30 | Annotative will control the size of your text.
| | 01:33 | Let's take a quick look at the Symbols
and Arrows tab. I'm happy with the size
| | 01:37 | of two-and-a-half millimeters for my
arrowheads. The only setting I want to
| | 01:41 | change is on the Primary Units tab. I'm
going to come down to Decimal Separator
| | 01:45 | and click this flyout. Instead of
using a Comma, I would like to use a Period
| | 01:49 | to separate my whole units from my decimals.
| | 01:52 | Now that I'm finished, I'll come down
and click OK, and I have just created an
| | 01:56 | Annotative Dimension Style. Notice
this little icon. This icon tells me that
| | 02:00 | this dimension style is special. It's
capable of automatically sizing itself to
| | 02:04 | match my plot scale. Now, this style
happens to be current. So I'm going to
| | 02:08 | come down and click Close.
| | 02:11 | Let's say I'm going to be plotting this
drawing at half scale or one to two. To
| | 02:15 | create my dimensions, all I have to do
is come down and set my Annotation Scale
| | 02:19 | to one to two and then I'm ready to go.
I'm going to move up and click the
| | 02:24 | Linear Dimension and we'll create one
from the end point here to the end point
| | 02:28 | here and we'll pull it out. I'm going
to hit my spacebar to go right back into
| | 02:31 | the command. We'll create one more.
Let's zoom in a little bit. Notice the
| | 02:37 | geometry in this area is quite small.
| | 02:40 | Let's say I was going to plot a detail
of this area at twice its normal size or
| | 02:45 | two to one. No problem. Let's change
our Annotation Scale. I'll click the flyout,
| | 02:49 | and we'll set this to two to one
and then we'll create some more dimensions.
| | 02:54 | So I'll click the flyout and select
Aligned. I'll zoom in a little bit closer,
| | 02:58 | and I'll create a dimension from the
end point here to the end point here, and
| | 03:01 | we'll pull it out. I'll hit the
spacebar to go back into the command, I'll hit
| | 03:05 | the end point here to the end point
here, and we'll pull it out to the end
| | 03:09 | point of this arrowhead.
| | 03:11 | Notice how my dimensions are
automatically sized based on the Annotation Scale.
| | 03:15 | I'm going to do Zoom Extents. Now,
this drawing already has a layout created
| | 03:20 | with some viewports. Let's take a look.
| | 03:22 | To do that, I'm going to come down
and click my Quick View Layouts tool,
| | 03:26 | I'll select my Layout Preview, and then
I'm going to click on Screen to dismiss the tool.
| | 03:30 | On the left side of my layout,
I have a viewport created that is
| | 03:34 | displaying my geometry at a scale of
one to two, or half scale. On the right
| | 03:39 | side, I have another viewport that is
viewing my geometry at a scale of two to
| | 03:42 | one. Notice how my dimensions
appear the same size in both viewports.
| | 03:47 | At this point, I would like to create
some call-outs. Let's go back to model
| | 03:50 | space. To go back, I'm going to right-
click on my Quick View Layout tool and
| | 03:54 | select Activate Model tab. Our
Multileaders also can form to the Annotative
| | 03:59 | property. To create Annotative
Multileaders, I'm going to come up to the
| | 04:02 | Multileaders panel in my ribbon
and click the Multileader Style icon.
| | 04:06 | I am going to create a new one, so I'll
come down and click New, and I'm going
| | 04:11 | to call this Annotative Leaders. Once
again, there is no magic. All we have to
| | 04:18 | do is put a check in the Annotative box,
and then we'll click Continue. Just
| | 04:23 | like a Dimension Style, what we want
to do is set any size settings on these
| | 04:26 | tabs to match the size we want
our Multileaders to appear on paper.
| | 04:30 | Now, I would like my Multileaders to be
similar to my dimensions. So I'm going
| | 04:34 | to set my Arrowhead size to 2.5
millimeters, then I'll click on Leader
| | 04:39 | Structure and I'm going to change the
size of my landing distance. That's this
| | 04:43 | line right here. I'm going to knock
that down to 2.5 millimeters, and then
| | 04:48 | finally we'll click the Content tab,
and I'm going to make my Text Height
| | 04:52 | two-and-a-half millimeters, and then
I'll click OK. Notice we have just created
| | 04:57 | an Annotative Multileader Style.
It happens to be current.
| | 05:00 | Let's come down and click Close.
| | 05:02 | I am going to zoom in and we'll create
a leader that's sized for our two to one
| | 05:06 | scale viewport. Let me check my
Annotation Scale. That's already set properly.
| | 05:11 | We'll come up and click the Multileader
tool and I would like my tool to start
| | 05:15 | at the end of this line, we'll put it
out a little bit, and I'll click All
| | 05:21 | Dimensions. Then I'm going to click
and hold on my sliders so that I get some
| | 05:25 | word wrap, typical, and I'll click Close.
| | 05:31 | Let's create a leader for a half
scale viewport. I'm going to zoom out and
| | 05:35 | we'll pan over and zoom in on this side
of the drawing. Once again, I'll change
| | 05:39 | my Annotation Scale to Half Scale.
We'll launch the Multileader tool and I'll
| | 05:45 | create a Multileader from the center of
this circle and we'll pull it out, then
| | 05:49 | we'll type 6 HOLES EVENLY SPACED. I'll
grab my slider and I'll give myself a
| | 05:57 | little word wrap. When I'm finished,
I'll come up and click the X to close the editor.
| | 06:02 | Let's jump back out and take a look at
our layout. To do that, I'll right-click
| | 06:06 | on the Quick View Layouts tool, and
we'll select Activate Previous Layout, and
| | 06:10 | notice that my call-outs appear the
same size in both viewports. Now, I do have
| | 06:14 | a little issue right here. Let's fix this.
| | 06:16 | I am going to double-click in this
viewport. We'll select the call-out,
| | 06:20 | we'll grab this grip, and we'll just
move it over a little bit. There we go.
| | 06:23 | When I'm finished, I'll double-click outside
the viewport to get back on my desktop.
| | 06:28 | By setting our styles to be annotative,
we never have to worry about sizing our
| | 06:32 | dimensions or call-outs. All we have
to do is choose an Annotation Scale and
| | 06:35 | AutoCAD is more than
happy to do the math for us.
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| Viewing annotative objects| 00:00 | The Annotation Scale controls more
than just the insertion of your annotative
| | 00:04 | objects; it can also be used to
control their display. In this lesson, we are
| | 00:07 | going to learn how to control the
appearance of our annotative objects.
| | 00:10 | On my screen, I have got an
architectural example. This is a drawing of a
| | 00:14 | Gothic Window and I have added some
annotative objects to this drawing. I have
| | 00:17 | created some dimensions and
some call-outs at various scales.
| | 00:21 | Now the larger dimensions and text were
created for a viewport scale of 3/4" = 1'
| | 00:27 | and the smaller ones were
created for a viewport scale of 3" = 1'.
| | 00:32 | If you ever question the plot scale of
your annotative object, simply select
| | 00:36 | the object, go to your Property Changer,
and we can see right here that this
| | 00:40 | object is annotative and we can see its
scale. We can use the Property Changer
| | 00:44 | Method to see the Annotation
Scale of any annotative object.
| | 00:47 | Let's do a Zoom Extents because I would
like to talk about this icon right down
| | 00:52 | here. This guy controls our annotation
visibility. Now this buttons is a toggle
| | 00:58 | so it has two settings. The ironic
thing is that both settings mean on. It just
| | 01:02 | depends on how much on you want. The
default setting with the illuminated light
| | 01:06 | bulb means that all of the
annotative objects will display on my screen.
| | 01:11 | If I click this button and turn the
light bulb off, only the annotative objects
| | 01:15 | that match the current scale will show
up on my screen. Let's toggle this back
| | 01:19 | on because I want to mention that all
of my dimensions and call-outs are on the
| | 01:23 | same layer. This means I never again
have to create multiple layers when I want
| | 01:27 | to have call-outs displaying at different sizes.
| | 01:30 | From now on, my annotative objects can
be on a common layer and I can control
| | 01:34 | their visibility by using the
Annotation Scale and my Visibility Toggle. So
| | 01:38 | when I'm working in model space, I
can choose to see all of my annotative
| | 01:41 | objects or if I wanted to be selective,
first as if I was working on a detail
| | 01:46 | view of this Window, I can come down
and set its Annotation Scale Current and
| | 01:51 | then I can click the Visibility Toggle
and those are the only annotations that
| | 01:54 | I'll see on my screen.
| | 01:56 | Let's turn this back on and we'll
take it one step further. This drawing
| | 02:00 | already has a layout created. Let's
take a look. To do that, I'm going to come
| | 02:03 | down and click my Quick View Layouts
tool. I'll click my Layout Preview and
| | 02:07 | then I'll click on screen to dismiss
the tool. I would like to create a couple
| | 02:11 | of viewports.
| | 02:12 | Now I'm practicing good form, I have
already created a layer for my viewports
| | 02:16 | and that layer happens to be current.
To create the viewports, I'm going to go
| | 02:20 | to the View tab on my ribbon and then
I'll click New, Single, and OK. And I
| | 02:25 | would like to start my viewport at the
end point right here, and I would like
| | 02:29 | to place it to -- I'm going to hold
down my Shift key and right-click to bring
| | 02:32 | up my Object Snap menu, and
I'll select midpoint of this line.
| | 02:37 | Let's create one more viewport. Once
again I'll click New, Single, OK and I'll
| | 02:44 | create my viewport from this end point
to the end point up here. Now I would
| | 02:49 | like to set the viewport on the left
to a scale of 3/4" = 1'. So I'm going to
| | 02:53 | double-click inside the viewport and
we'll come down and set its scale.
| | 02:58 | And notice that AutoCAD is smart enough
to show me the annotative objects that are
| | 03:01 | set for that scale.
| | 03:03 | Let's click inside the other viewport
and we'll set its scale to 3" = 1', then
| | 03:08 | I'll move inside the viewport and
we'll click-and-hold our wheel. We'll pan
| | 03:11 | this down and center it on screen
and once again I'm only seeing the
| | 03:16 | annotative objects that are
designed for this plot scale.
| | 03:19 | Now that I'm finished, I'm going to
double-click on my desktop to jump out of
| | 03:22 | the viewport. Now that I'm on my
layout, take a look right down here on my
| | 03:25 | Status Bar. I have got the same
annotation visibility toggle. This guy is
| | 03:30 | actually a separate setting than the
one we have in model space. They are
| | 03:33 | independent, meaning the one in model
space can be on and this one could be off
| | 03:36 | or vice versa. Since the Toggle is set
to off, I'm only seeing the annotative
| | 03:41 | objects whose scale matches the viewport scale.
| | 03:44 | If I come down and toggle this on I'll
see all of my annotative objects. Now,
| | 03:48 | this is probably the least desirable
setting, so I'm going to come back down
| | 03:50 | and turn this off. And I would like to
show you one more thing. When you first
| | 03:54 | start working with annotative objects
and the visibility toggle, it's very easy
| | 03:58 | to select your viewport, come down and
change its scale, and then wonder where
| | 04:02 | did all my callouts go?
| | 04:05 | If your annotative objects don't show
up in your viewport it's because their
| | 04:08 | scale doesn't match the scale of your
viewport. These annotative objects were
| | 04:12 | designed to be displayed at 3" = 1'.
So in order for them to show up, I need to
| | 04:17 | change my viewport scale to 3" = 1'.
| | 04:21 | Using the Annotation Display feature,
we can place our annotative objects on a
| | 04:24 | common layer and ensure the only
annotations that show up in our viewport are
| | 04:28 | the ones properly sized for that viewport.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding scales to annotative objects| 00:01 | The true strength of annotative
objects is that they can be assigned multiple
| | 00:04 | scales. This means we can have a
single annotation show up at the proper size
| | 00:08 | in multiple viewports even if those
viewports are set up for different plot
| | 00:12 | scales. In this lesson, we are
going to learn how to add scales to our
| | 00:15 | annotative objects.
| | 00:16 | On my screen, I have got an
architectural floor plan and if I zoom in on the
| | 00:20 | left-hand side, you can see that I
have already started annotating this
| | 00:24 | drawing. I have got some text, I have
got some dimensions, and I have got a
| | 00:27 | call-out. All of these objects were
created using annotative styles and they
| | 00:32 | were all inserted with an annotation
scale of one-half inch equals a foot.
| | 00:36 | Now, this drawing contains a layout.
Let's take a look at that. I'm going to
| | 00:40 | come down and click my Quick View
Layout tool. We'll select the Layout Preview,
| | 00:44 | and then we'll click on screen.
Now, my layout contains two viewports.
| | 00:48 | The layout on the left is focusing on
the master bedroom and the master bath area.
| | 00:52 | It happens to have the scale of one-
half inch equals a foot. That's why I can
| | 00:56 | see all of my annotative objects.
| | 00:58 | Now the viewport on the right focuses
on the master bath area only and this
| | 01:02 | viewport is set to a scale of one inch
equals one foot. Now, I would like my
| | 01:07 | annotative objects to show up in this
viewport as well and I would like them
| | 01:11 | to be appropriately sized. In the old
days, this meant making copies. Today,
| | 01:15 | that's no longer necessary because now
I can simply add an annotation scale to
| | 01:20 | my existing objects.
| | 01:22 | Let's set back to model space. I'm
going to right-click on my icon and select
| | 01:25 | Activate Model Tab and we'll center
our master bath on screen. Let's start
| | 01:31 | with this text. Let's see if we can
get this guy to show up in the other
| | 01:34 | viewport. To do that, I'm
going to add an annotation scale.
| | 01:38 | First, I'm going to come down and
click my Annotation Scale flyout and I'm
| | 01:41 | going to select my desired scale, one
inch equals a foot. Then I'm going to
| | 01:45 | come up and click the Annotate tab on
my ribbon and I'm going to come all the
| | 01:49 | way down to the Annotation panel
and I'm going to click this icon that
| | 01:52 | represents Add Current Scale.
| | 01:54 | Now, notice at my command line, we
could use this tool on multiple objects.
| | 01:58 | In this case, we are just going to do the
one. Let's select this text and then
| | 02:01 | I'll right-click and notice the text
size changed such that it's appropriate
| | 02:06 | for the other viewport. Now don't worry,
I didn't lose my original. If I click
| | 02:09 | my annotation scale again, I can set
this back to a half of an inch equals a foot,
| | 02:14 | and my text goes right back to normal.
| | 02:17 | Let's jump back out and take a look
at our layout. To do that, I'm going to
| | 02:20 | right-click on this tool and select
Activate Previous Layout. Notice that this
| | 02:25 | annotation object now supports the
other viewport scale. The nice thing is this
| | 02:29 | is the same text being seen in both
viewports. So if this text changes, I only
| | 02:33 | have to edit the one object and
I'll see the update in both places.
| | 02:38 | Let's go back to model space. I'm
going to come down and right-click.
| | 02:40 | We'll select Activate Model tab and
then we'll back up just a little bit.
| | 02:45 | Since I would like all of these annotative
objects to show up in the other viewport,
| | 02:48 | let's look at how we can globally
add annotation scales to our objects.
| | 02:52 | To do that, I'm going to come down
and click the Auto Scale icon. Now by
| | 02:56 | default, this guy is turned off. If I
click and toggle this guy on and then
| | 03:00 | change my annotation scale, AutoCAD
will globally apply this scale to every
| | 03:05 | annotation object in my drawing.
| | 03:06 | Now it's very important after you use
this button to turn it off. Otherwise,
| | 03:11 | every time you click your annotation
scale, you may be adding unnecessary
| | 03:15 | scales to your objects and this can
increase your file size. Let's take a look
| | 03:19 | at our layout again. Notice that all
of my annotative objects now support the
| | 03:25 | new viewport scale. You may be
wondering how this is possible, how we can have
| | 03:29 | the same objects showing up at the
appropriate size in two differently scaled viewports.
| | 03:33 | Let me show you what's really
happening. We are going to go back to model
| | 03:37 | space and I'm going to zoom in on
this call-out. Watch this. If I click this
| | 03:42 | object, I can see both of the sizes. So
in a sense, AutoCAD is creating copies
| | 03:47 | of the objects just like we used to do
in the old days, but it's taking care of
| | 03:51 | all of the work in the background, and
the best thing is I can move the copies
| | 03:55 | independently of each other.
| | 03:57 | So since I'm currently working with
the one inch equals a foot annotations,
| | 04:01 | I can select this grip and I can move
only this version of the call-out.
| | 04:05 | Let's hit Escape to deselect. I'm going to
pan over a little bit. Maybe I would like
| | 04:09 | this dimension to be in a slightly
different place in the other viewport.
| | 04:13 | Once again, I'll click the dimension,
I'll grab the grip, and I can move just this
| | 04:17 | scaled version of my dimension.
Let's hit Escape. I'm going to pan up.
| | 04:22 | We'll take a look at the text object.
| | 04:24 | Let's click this guy, I'll select my
grip and I'm going to move this version
| | 04:27 | right over here and I'll hit Escape.
If the time comes when you would like to
| | 04:32 | realign your annotative scales,
you can simply come up and click the
| | 04:35 | Synchronize Multiple Scales icon.
This tool will align all of the alternate
| | 04:40 | scales to match the current position.
| | 04:43 | So if I select this text and right-click,
I can come back and select it again,
| | 04:47 | and we can see that my annotation
scales are now synchronized to the current
| | 04:51 | location. As you continue to explore
the annotative features, experiment with
| | 04:55 | your right-click menu.
| | 04:57 | Watch this. If I select this text and
right-click, in the menu I have got an
| | 05:01 | Annotative Object Scale that gives me
access to several of the tools that we
| | 05:04 | have talked about in this session.
Just think, never again do we have to
| | 05:09 | duplicate our labels for each viewport
scale. From now on, we can create one
| | 05:13 | label and add an annotation
scale for each additional viewport.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Removing scales from annotative objects| 00:01 | Each time you add an annotation scale
to an object, you increase the size of
| | 00:04 | your drawing. For this reason, if your
entities have an annotation scale that
| | 00:08 | isn't being used, you might want to
remove it. In this lesson, we are going to
| | 00:11 | learn how to remove a scale
from our annotative objects.
| | 00:14 | On my screen, I have got an
architectural floor plan. Let me zoom in on the
| | 00:18 | left-hand side because I have several
annotative objects in this drawing.
| | 00:22 | All of the text you see, all the
dimensions and the call-outs were created using
| | 00:26 | annotative styles and all of them
support two different annotation scales.
| | 00:31 | If I zoom in and click on this call-
out, we can see both of the sizes.
| | 00:35 | I'm going to hit Escape to deselect and
let's take a look at the layout that's
| | 00:40 | associated with this drawing. I'll
come down and click our Quick View Layout tool.
| | 00:44 | We'll select the Layout Preview and
then we'll click on screen to dismiss the tool.
| | 00:48 | Now, this layout contains two
different viewports and my annotation objects
| | 00:52 | are visible in both. The viewport on
the left is set to a scale of one-half of
| | 00:57 | an inch equals a foot and the
viewport on the right is set to a scale of
| | 01:00 | one-inch equals a foot. Let's assume
there was a design change. Let's say the
| | 01:05 | architect decided to revise
the scale of this viewport.
| | 01:08 | I am going to select the viewport by
the edge. I'm going to come down and click
| | 01:12 | my Viewport Scale and we'll set this
to three-eighth of an inch equals a foot.
| | 01:17 | When I do, my geometry is represented
smaller on the page and my annotative
| | 01:21 | objects no longer show up because
they don't support this scale.
| | 01:25 | Let's hit Escape to deselect and I'm going
to be tidy. I'm going to zoom in and change
| | 01:29 | this text.
| | 01:30 | Let's double-click and we'll make this
three-eighth of an inch equals a foot,
| | 01:36 | and I'll click the X to close my editor.
Let's do a Zoom Extents and we'll jump
| | 01:41 | back to model space. I'm going to
back up a little bit and we'll make the
| | 01:46 | correction to our annotative objects.
| | 01:49 | To do that, I'm going to come down and
click my Auto-scale tool and then I'll
| | 01:52 | click my Annotation flyout and I'll
set this to three-eighth of an inch equals
| | 01:57 | a foot, my new viewport scale. Then I'll
immediately come down and turn-off my Auto-scale.
| | 02:01 | Now, here is my problem. Let's zoom
in on this call-out. If I select this,
| | 02:06 | I can see this call-out is now
supporting three different scales, one of which
| | 02:11 | I'm not even using. Let's hit
Escape to deselect and we'll remove
| | 02:15 | the unnecessary scale.
| | 02:16 | Now, we can do this on an individual
basis by coming down to the Annotation
| | 02:20 | Scale List and I can select one-half
inch equals a foot. This is the scale
| | 02:25 | that I no longer need. Then I'll come
up to the Annotate tab and click.
| | 02:30 | We'll come all the way down to the
Annotation Scales panel and I'm going to click
| | 02:33 | this flyout and select Delete Current Scale.
| | 02:36 | Now, if we look at the command line,
we can see this tool can be used on
| | 02:40 | multiple objects. In this case, we'll
just do one. I'll select this object and
| | 02:44 | right-click. If I select this again,
we can see the unnecessary scale is now gone.
| | 02:49 | I'm going to backup and let's
talk about how we can globally remove an
| | 02:53 | annotation scale from our objects.
| | 02:56 | To do that, I'm going to come up to
the Annotation panel and click the
| | 02:58 | Add/Delete Scales icon. Then I can
select objects. In this case, I'm going to
| | 03:03 | type All and hit Enter, and then I'll
right-click to finish my selection.
| | 03:08 | In this dialog box, I can see a listing
of all of the scales associated with
| | 03:11 | my annotative objects.
| | 03:12 | Now, if I wanted to, I could come down
and click this button and I can see only
| | 03:16 | the scales that are common between the
objects. Now remember, I have removed
| | 03:20 | one of the bad scales. That's why it
doesn't show up in the list now. Let's set
| | 03:24 | this back to List All Scales.
| | 03:26 | I am going to select the scale that
I no longer need and then I'll click
| | 03:30 | Delete. Now that scale has been
removed from all of my annotative objects.
| | 03:34 | Let's click OK and we'll jump back
out to our layout, and once again
| | 03:39 | my annotative objects are showing up
properly in both viewports and I'm no longer
| | 03:44 | carrying around any
unnecessary scale information.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating annotative blocks| 00:00 | AutoCAD's Annotative property controls
more than just text objects. Blocks can
| | 00:05 | also be annotative. This could be very
helpful if you have symbols that need to
| | 00:09 | be seen in multiple viewports at
different scales. In this lesson, we are going
| | 00:13 | to learn how we can create an annotative block.
| | 00:15 | On my screen, I have got a civil
engineering example. This happens to be a
| | 00:19 | drawing of a proposed subdivision and
it was created such that each unit equals
| | 00:23 | one foot. I'm going to zoom in a little
bit because I would like you to take a
| | 00:27 | look at all of the
annotations that are in this drawing.
| | 00:29 | All of these labels that you see were
created using an annotative style. I have
| | 00:34 | labels that identify my top-of-
foundation elevations for my proposed houses and
| | 00:39 | I have got several labels throughout
my subdivision that show me the proposed
| | 00:42 | ground elevations such that the
storm water flows away from my houses.
| | 00:46 | I am going to zoom in on one of these
labels. I'll select it because I want to
| | 00:51 | show you that each of the annotative
objects in this drawing supports three
| | 00:54 | different plot scales. Let's hit
Escape, I'm going to do a Zoom Extents and
| | 00:59 | let's take a look at the layout
that's associated with this drawing.
| | 01:01 | I am going to come down and click the
Quick View Layouts tool. We'll select
| | 01:05 | that Layout Preview and then we'll
click on the screen. This layout represents
| | 01:09 | a 24x36 inch piece of paper and it
contains three different viewports. The
| | 01:15 | viewport on the left is viewing my
geometry a scale of 1-inch equals 30 feet.
| | 01:20 | The viewport in the upper-right is
showing me the same geometry at a scale of 1
| | 01:24 | inch equals 20 feet. Right down here I
have got another viewport that is also
| | 01:28 | viewing the same geometry at a scale
of 1-inch equals 10 feet. Notice that my
| | 01:33 | annotations are visible in all three viewports.
| | 01:37 | Let's center my 1:10 viewport on the
screen. Since this drawing represents a
| | 01:41 | grading plan and I have identified all
of these proposed elevations throughout
| | 01:45 | my site, I would like to insert some
flow arrows to identify the direction the
| | 01:50 | storm water is going to
flow in between the houses.
| | 01:53 | Now I'm going to create my flow arrow
as a block and I would like the block to
| | 01:56 | show up at the same size in all of the
other viewports. So I'm going to create
| | 02:01 | an annotative block. Now the only trick
to creating an annotative block is that
| | 02:05 | you have to construct your geometry at
the size you want it to appear on paper
| | 02:09 | and the easiest way to do that is
to draw your geometry on the paper.
| | 02:12 | If I pan over, we zoom in on this
line work, we can see that I have already
| | 02:17 | drawn my flow arrow. Let's turn this
geometry into an annotative block. To do
| | 02:22 | that, I'm going to come up and click
my Block Create tool, and I'm going to
| | 02:25 | called this block, flow arrow, then
we'll click Pick point and I would like its
| | 02:30 | insertion point to be
the end point of this line.
| | 02:32 | I am going to come down and turn on my
running object snaps and will grab that
| | 02:36 | end point. Then we'll click Select
objects and I'll window all of this geometry
| | 02:41 | and right-click. Now I don't need to
keep this original geometry, so I'm going
| | 02:45 | to leave this set for Delete and then
I'm going to come up and put a check in
| | 02:49 | the Annotative box. This will ensure
that my flow arrow scales itself to my
| | 02:54 | current annotation scale.
| | 02:55 | Let's come down and click OK. I'm
going to do a Zoom Extents and let's jump
| | 03:00 | back to model space and insert some
arrows. I'm going to zoom in on lot 9.
| | 03:06 | I'm practicing good form. I have already
created a layer for my flow arrows.
| | 03:09 | If I click the flyout, we can see
that layer happens to be current.
| | 03:12 | Now the arrows that I insert, I would
like to be appropriately sized for the
| | 03:17 | 1-inch equals 30 viewport, so I'm
going to come down and check my annotation
| | 03:21 | scale, 1:30. That happens to be fine.
So let's come up and click our Block
| | 03:25 | Insert icon. I want to insert the flow
arrow. Notice the special symbol that's
| | 03:30 | associated with my preview. This shows
me that this block will automatically
| | 03:34 | scale itself to this annotation scale
and when I insert the block, I would like
| | 03:39 | to specify its insertion point on
screen as well as its rotation. Let's click OK.
| | 03:44 | I am going to click right here to drop
my first arrow. I'm being very careful
| | 03:49 | of my running object snaps. In fact,
let's turn those back off. I'm going to
| | 03:52 | move up and click my Insert icon
again, we'll click OK and we'll drop in
| | 03:56 | another arrow pointed in this direction.
| | 03:59 | Let's insert another. I'm going to
hit my spacebar to go into the previous
| | 04:02 | command. We'll click OK, drop an arrow
right here and we'll do one more.
| | 04:06 | I'll hit my spacebar, we'll click OK
and we'll drop one right here.
| | 04:10 | Now all of the arrows I have inserted
are annotative symbols. We can see this
| | 04:14 | by moving up and selecting an arrow and
if I come over to my Property changer,
| | 04:18 | if we look in the Miscellaneous area,
we can see this block is Annotative and
| | 04:21 | we can see the scale that it has been assigned.
| | 04:23 | Let's move outside the palette, I'm
going to hit Escape and let's jump back out
| | 04:27 | to our layout and see how this looks.
If I zoom in on the viewport that's set
| | 04:33 | to 1 inch equals 30 scale, I can see
that all of my symbols aren't showing up.
| | 04:38 | That's not a problem. All I have to do
is regenerate my drawing. I'm going to
| | 04:42 | come up to the Menu Browser and click.
We'll go to the View menu and we'll
| | 04:45 | select Regen All. Now all of
my symbols show up on screen.
| | 04:50 | Now these symbols are good for my 30
scale viewport, but remember we would also
| | 04:53 | like them to show up in the 20 scale
and the 10 scale viewport. Let's jump back
| | 04:58 | in the model space and we'll add
some annotation scales to our blocks.
| | 05:02 | I am going to add my scales globally.
I'm going to do that by clicking my
| | 05:05 | Autoscale button and then I'll click
my Annotation Scale flyout and we'll set
| | 05:10 | this for 1:20. Then I'll click the
flyout again and we'll set this to 1:10 and
| | 05:16 | then I'll immediately come
down and turn off my Autoscale.
| | 05:19 | Now it didn't matter that I added
these scales globally because all of the
| | 05:22 | other annotative objects supported
these scales anyway. Let's jump back to our
| | 05:27 | layout and if I zoom in and pan around,
we can see that these blocks are now
| | 05:32 | visible in the other two viewports and
they are showing up at the appropriate size.
| | 05:38 | Never again do we have to create
multiple block insertions to accommodate
| | 05:41 | viewports of different scales. From
now on we can create an annotative block
| | 05:46 | and then add scales to that
block for each additional viewport.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating annotative hatch| 00:00 | Believe it or not, your hatch
patterns can also be annotative. Using the
| | 00:04 | Annotative property, we can ensure
that our hatch patterns look consistent
| | 00:08 | regardless of the viewport scale. In
this lesson, we are going to learn how to
| | 00:11 | create some annotative hatch. On my
screen, I have got a mechanical example.
| | 00:15 | This is a drawing of a part that's
been drafted in the top view and a section view.
| | 00:20 | Now this drawing contains some
annotations that are designed for viewports of
| | 00:24 | different scales. Let's do a Zoom
Extents and we'll take a look at the layout
| | 00:29 | that's been set up for this drawing.
I'm going to come down and click my Quick
| | 00:32 | View Layouts tool, we'll select the
Layout Preview and then we'll click on screen.
| | 00:37 | Now this layout contains two viewports.
The viewport on the left is showing my
| | 00:42 | geometry at a scale of 2:1. Since
my section contains some small detail
| | 00:47 | geometry, I have created a secondary
viewport showing my geometry a scale of 4:1.
| | 00:53 | Now here is my problem. Traditionally,
when we create a section view, we hatch
| | 00:57 | the area of our part that has been cut.
If I hatch this geometry the normal
| | 01:01 | way, my hatch pattern will appear
larger in this viewport because my geometry
| | 01:06 | is closer. Instead, I would like my
hatch pattern to look the same in both
| | 01:10 | viewports, so I'm going to
create an annotative hatch pattern.
| | 01:14 | To do that I'm going to go back to
model space, let's right-click on this tool
| | 01:18 | and select Activate Model tab. Now
there is no magic in creating an annotative
| | 01:22 | hatch. We create it the same way we
create any other hatch pattern. The most
| | 01:26 | important thing to remember is to set
your desired annotation scale current
| | 01:30 | before we create the hatch. So let me
click this flyout and I'm going to set my
| | 01:34 | Annotation Scale for 2:1.
| | 01:37 | At this point I can create my hatch,
now I'm practicing a good form. I have
| | 01:40 | already created a hatch layer and it's
current. So let's come over and click
| | 01:44 | the Hatch icon. I'm going to stick
with the ANSI31 pattern and I'm going to
| | 01:49 | click Pick points and then I'm going to
pick inside here and here and here and
| | 01:54 | here and then I'll right-
click and select Preview.
| | 01:57 | Let me zoom in a little bit. Now I'm
not crazy on the spacing of this hatch.
| | 02:03 | Let's click on screen to bring back the
dialog box and I'm going to change its
| | 02:07 | scale to 0.3 and I'll click Preview
again. That looks a little bit better.
| | 02:12 | I'm going to go with that. I'm going to
pick on screen one more time to bring back
| | 02:16 | the dialog box and now I'm going to
put a check in the Annotative box. This
| | 02:21 | means that the hatch pattern I'm
creating is designed for the current
| | 02:24 | annotation scale.
| | 02:25 | Let's click OK and let's take a look
at our layout. Notice my hatch pattern
| | 02:30 | shows up in this viewport because it
was designed for a scale of 2:1. Let's add
| | 02:35 | an additional scale to this pattern
so that it shows up properly in this viewport.
| | 02:39 | Once again we'll return to model space.
Now I'm not going to add this scale
| | 02:42 | globally because I don't want to add
this scale to all of the other annotative
| | 02:46 | objects in this drawing. To add my
scale, I'm going to come down to the
| | 02:49 | Annotative Scale list and click and I'm
going to set my desired scale current,
| | 02:54 | which is 4:1. Then I'm going to come up
and click the Annotate tab on my ribbon
| | 02:58 | and I'm going to come down to
Annotation panel and click this flyout and I'm
| | 03:02 | going to select Add Current Scale and
I'll click here to select my hatch and
| | 03:07 | I'll right-click.
| | 03:08 | Notice that my hatch now supports the
other scale. Let's set our Annotation
| | 03:12 | Scale back to 2:1, so that my hatch
goes back to its normal appearance and
| | 03:16 | we'll jump back out to our layout.
Notice my hatch pattern is now appearing in
| | 03:21 | both viewports at the same size.
| | 03:23 | Setting our hatch to be annotative,
means that we can standardize the
| | 03:27 | appearance of our hatch between viewports
even if those viewports are different scales.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a custom scale| 00:00 | The Annotation Scale List provides us
with the most commonly used scales for
| | 00:04 | plotting. There will be times though
when you will need a scale that doesn't
| | 00:08 | appear on the list.
| | 00:09 | In this lesson, we are going to
learn how to create a custom scale. On my
| | 00:12 | screen, I have got a mechanical
example. What we see is a part that's being
| | 00:15 | represented in a top-view and a section-view.
| | 00:18 | This drawing contains some annotative
objects that are designed for multiple
| | 00:22 | viewports of different scales.
We'll take a look at the layout that's
| | 00:26 | associated with this drawing. I'm
going to come down and click my Quick View
| | 00:29 | Layouts tool. We'll select the Layout
Preview and then we'll click on screen.
| | 00:34 | Now, this layout contains two
viewports. The one on the left is viewing my
| | 00:38 | geometry at a scale of two to one,
and the one on the right is viewing a
| | 00:42 | portion of my geometry at a scale of
four to one. Let's say we would like to
| | 00:46 | change the scale of this
viewport to be five to one.
| | 00:49 | To do that, I'm going to select the
viewport edge. I'm going to come down and
| | 00:52 | click my scale list, and then I'm going
to move up, and I notice that 5:1 isn't
| | 00:57 | available. That doesn't mean we can't
use the scale, it just means if we want
| | 01:01 | to use it, we have to add it to this list.
| | 01:03 | To do that, I'm going to come down and
click this arrow a few times to get all
| | 01:07 | the way to the bottom and then I'm
going to select Custom. This brings up my
| | 01:10 | Edit Scale List dialog box where I
can make changes to my scale list. Watch
| | 01:15 | this. If I select an entry in the list,
I can look right down here and see the
| | 01:19 | properties of that scale. So a scale
of 1:2 essentially means one paper unit
| | 01:25 | equals two drawing units.
| | 01:27 | As long as you know your paper units
and drawing units, creating a custom scale
| | 01:31 | is easy. In this drawing, my paper is
being measured in inches, and my drawing
| | 01:35 | units are also set to inches. So to
create a custom scale, I'm going to come up
| | 01:39 | and click Add. Then I'm going to give
my scale a name. I'm going to type 5:1.
| | 01:45 | Remember, this is just a name. This
is the name that we'll see in the list.
| | 01:49 | It's the properties below
that control how the scale works.
| | 01:53 | Well, 5:1 scale is going to be five
paper units to one drawing unit.
| | 02:00 | Let's click OK and notice I now have a new
scale in my list. Now, if you want to be
| | 02:04 | orderly, you can come over and click
the Move up or Move down button to place
| | 02:09 | this guy wherever you like. When I'm
finished, I'm going to come down and click OK.
| | 02:13 | Let's try our new scale. I'm going to
come over and click this viewport again.
| | 02:16 | I'll click my scale list, and I'll move
up and select 5:1. Now, my geometry is
| | 02:23 | being displayed larger. So I'm going
to click this grip and I'll stretch my
| | 02:27 | viewport a little bit taller.
| | 02:29 | Let's hit Escape, and I'm going to be
tidy. Let's change this label. I'm going
| | 02:32 | to zoom in and we'll double-click on it,
and we'll change this to 5:1, and I'll
| | 02:39 | hit Enter, and we'll hit
Escape to get out of the command.
| | 02:41 | I am going to do a Zoom Extents, and
we'll jump back to model space. I'm going
| | 02:45 | to right-click on my Quick View
Layouts tool, and we'll select Activate Model
| | 02:50 | tab. Now, any custom scales that we
create will also show up in our Annotation
| | 02:55 | Scale List. It's essentially the same list.
| | 02:58 | I want to create one more. I'm going to
come down and click this Downward Arrow
| | 03:01 | until we get to the bottom, and let's
select Custom one more time. Let's talk
| | 03:05 | about how we would create a custom
architectural scale. I'm going to select one
| | 03:10 | of these guys from the list, and
let's take a look at the properties below.
| | 03:14 | Now in an architectural drawing, our
paper is measured in inches, and our
| | 03:18 | drawing units are also inches. So one-
half inch equals a foot means half of a
| | 03:24 | paper unit or 0.5 the decimal
equivalent equals 12 drawing units, 12 inches in
| | 03:29 | a foot. Understanding this, I can
create any custom architectural scale I wish.
| | 03:35 | Let's create an architectural scale
for 5/8th of an inch equals a foot.
| | 03:38 | I'm going to come up and click Add.
Let's give it a name. We'll type 5/8" = 1'.
| | 03:46 | Then we'll come down to the properties.
Well, the decimal equivalent of 5/8th
| | 03:50 | is 0.625, and my drawing units will
equal 12. Let's click OK, and I have just
| | 03:58 | created a custom architectural scale.
| | 04:00 | Now, notice the name of my scale
doesn't look as nice as some of the other ones
| | 04:04 | in the list. Let's fix mine. To do that,
I'm going to make sure it's selected,
| | 04:08 | and I'm going to come up and click
Edit. This takes me right back into the
| | 04:11 | dialog box where I can edit
the properties of my scale.
| | 04:15 | Let's click in here and we'll freshen
up the name just a little bit. Here we
| | 04:18 | go. When I'm finished, I'll come down
and click OK. Notice we can also use this
| | 04:23 | box to delete a scale or we can click
the Reset button to delete all custom
| | 04:28 | scales, and restore the
list to the AutoCAD defaults.
| | 04:32 | In this case, I'm going to click
Cancel because I don't want to do that, and
| | 04:34 | we'll click OK. Chances are, there are
some scales that you use regularly that
| | 04:39 | don't appear in the Scale List. If
this is the case, simply select the Custom
| | 04:43 | option in the list to add those scales
to your drawing. Better you add those
| | 04:47 | scales to your template drawing, and
then they will be available in every
| | 04:50 | drawing you create.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Converting non-annotative objects to annotative| 00:00 | You may like the idea of using
Annotative objects for all of your new drawings,
| | 00:04 | but you may be wondering if there is a
way to convert entities in your existing
| | 00:07 | drawings to be Annotative. In this
lesson we are going to learn how to convert
| | 00:11 | our non-Annotative objects to be Annotative.
| | 00:14 | On my screen I have got a mechanical
example. This is a drawing of a Light Duty
| | 00:18 | Furniture Caster. The part has been
drawn in both a front and a right side view
| | 00:23 | and the wheel has been drawn in
section. Let's take a quick tour of this
| | 00:27 | drawing. I'm going to jump out
and take a look at the layout.
| | 00:30 | To do that, I'm going to come down
and click my Quick View Layouts tool.
| | 00:33 | We'll select the Layout Preview and then
we'll click on screen. Now this layout
| | 00:37 | represents an 11x17 inch piece of
paper and it contains one viewport that's
| | 00:42 | displaying my geometry at a scale of 2
:1. Let's jump back into model space.
| | 00:47 | I am going to right-click on my icon
and select Activate Model tab. Now none of
| | 00:53 | the annotations that you see in
this drawing have been created using an
| | 00:56 | Annotative style. All of the text,
dimensions, call-outs and hatch have been
| | 01:01 | manually scaled such that they look
correct in that 2:1 scale viewport.
| | 01:05 | I'd like to convert these
existing objects to be Annotative.
| | 01:09 | The first thing I'm going to do is set
my Annotation Scale to 2:1, the scale of
| | 01:14 | that viewport. We'll start by
converting this text. I'm going to zoom in.
| | 01:18 | We'll center this on screen. Now if I
select this and I come over to my Property
| | 01:22 | changer, I can see this text was
created using a Style called notes and the
| | 01:26 | object is not Annotative. Let's hit Escape.
| | 01:29 | Now I'm going to come up to the
Annotate tab on my ribbon and I'm going to come
| | 01:33 | over and click the Text Style icon.
Let's select the notes style and we'll set
| | 01:38 | it to be Annotative. Then we'll
set its Paper Text Height to be 0.1.
| | 01:43 | Consequently, the text we are
converting was manually scaled such that it would
| | 01:47 | plot at 0.1 on my paper.
| | 01:49 | Let's push this up. I'm going to click
Apply and we'll click Close. I'm going
| | 01:53 | to select the Text again. If we come
back over to the Property changer, we can
| | 01:57 | see that the Style is set to
Annotative but this object is still not. That's
| | 02:02 | because I have to do one more thing,
let me hit Escape, I need to use a command
| | 02:06 | called ANNOUPDATE and this command can
only be typed at the command line. So
| | 02:10 | we'll type annoupdate. I'll hit Enter
and then I'll select my object and
| | 02:18 | I'll right-click.
| | 02:19 | The ANNOUPDATE command will update your
Annotative objects if there is a change
| | 02:23 | to their style. If I select this text
object again and we go back over to the
| | 02:27 | Property changer, I can see he is
now Annotative. We'll convert our
| | 02:30 | Multileaders. I'm going to select one
of these guys and if we look up in the
| | 02:35 | ribbon, we can see he was created
using a style called Lynda. I'm going to
| | 02:38 | click my Multileader Style icon. We'll
select the Lynda style from the list and
| | 02:44 | we'll click Modify.
| | 02:45 | Then I'll make sure that all of the
size settings in this dialog box match the
| | 02:49 | size I'd like my Multileaders to
appear on paper. Now as far as this style is
| | 02:53 | concerned that's already the case. I'm
going to go to the Leader Structure tab.
| | 02:58 | I'm going to set this Style to be
Annotative. Then I'll come down and click OK.
| | 03:01 | Then we'll click Close.
| | 03:04 | Once again, if I select the Leader and
we go over to the Property changer, we
| | 03:08 | can see that the Style is Annotative
but this object is still not. Let's launch
| | 03:12 | the ANNOUPDATE command again. I'm
going to hit Escape and to launch it I'm
| | 03:17 | going to right-click and select
Recent Input. We'll come over and select it
| | 03:21 | from this menu. Then I'll select this
object and this one and I'll back up and
| | 03:26 | select this one and right-click. These
guys are now annotative to the current
| | 03:31 | scale. Let's take care of our dimensions.
| | 03:33 | I am going to select one of them. We'll
look in our ribbon and we can see they
| | 03:36 | were created using a style called Lynda.
Let's click the Dimension Style icon.
| | 03:41 | We'll select the Lynda style and click
Modify and then I'll ensure that all of
| | 03:45 | my size settings in this dialog box
match the size I'd like my dimensions to
| | 03:49 | appear on paper. Once again, as far as
this Style is concerned that's already
| | 03:53 | the case. I'm going to go to Fit tab
and I'm going to come down and set this
| | 03:57 | style to be Annotative. Then I'll OK
and we'll click Close. Let's launch the
| | 04:02 | ANNOUPDATE command again.
| | 04:03 | I am going to right-click and we'll
go to the Recent Input menu and select
| | 04:08 | ANNOUPDATE. This time to select
objects prop I'm just going to make a window
| | 04:12 | and select everything and right-click.
Finally, I'm going to make my hatch
| | 04:16 | Annotative. Let's zoom in on this guy.
| | 04:19 | To do this, I'm going to use the
Property changer. Let me select this hatch
| | 04:23 | object and this one. We'll go to the
Property changer. Now I'm going to come
| | 04:27 | down to the Pattern area. We'll click
the Annotative field. Select the flyout
| | 04:32 | and we'll click Yes. Then I'll move
outside the dialog box and we'll hit
| | 04:36 | Escape. Let's do a Zoom Extents and
I'm going to jump back out to my layout.
| | 04:40 | I'm going to right-click and select
Activate Previous Layout. Let's say I would
| | 04:44 | like to create a viewport where I'm viewing
a portion of my geometry at a scale of 4:1.
| | 04:49 | To create my viewport, I'm going to
come up and click the View tab. I'm going
| | 04:52 | to select New > Single > OK. I'm going
to start my viewport at this endpoint.
| | 04:59 | Let's turn on our running objects snaps.
We'll start right here and I'm going
| | 05:03 | to take it all the way up to the
endpoint here. Now I'll double-click in the
| | 05:07 | viewport and we'll center the wheel
portion on screen. Then I'll change
| | 05:11 | my scale to 4:1.
| | 05:14 | Now that I'm finished I'm going to
double-click on my Desktop to get out of the
| | 05:16 | viewport and here is the nice thing.
Since all of these Annotations are now set
| | 05:21 | as true Annotative objects, I can
easily add them to my new viewport. Let's do
| | 05:27 | that. I'm going to return to model
space. Let's click our Autoscale icon and
| | 05:32 | I'll change my Annotation Scale to 4:1.
| | 05:36 | When I'm finished I'll turn off my
Autoscale and let's return to our Layout
| | 05:40 | tab. Then I'll double-click in this
viewport and I'll pan and we'll align this
| | 05:44 | cap just a little better and when I'm
finished I'll jump out by double-clicking
| | 05:48 | on my Desktop.
| | 05:50 | Now it appears I have to do one more
thing, take a look at my line types. My
| | 05:53 | line types aren't being honored in this
viewport. That's okay. All I have to do
| | 05:57 | is regenerate my screen. Let's go up
and click the Menu Browser. We'll come
| | 06:01 | down and select View and we'll click Regen All.
| | 06:04 | We can see that all of my labels
that were formerly static, have now been
| | 06:08 | converted into true Annotative objects
that can be viewed properly in multiple
| | 06:12 | viewports at different scales.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Displaying model space linetypes using MSLTSCALE| 00:00 | The Annotation Scale feature also
controls the appearance of our line types in
| | 00:04 | model space. If you are someone who
plots using layouts, this means that your
| | 00:08 | line types can now look correct
on your layouts and in model space.
| | 00:12 | Now on my screen I have got a civil
engineering example, I happen to be looking
| | 00:16 | at the layout that's been set up for
this drawing, and I have chosen this guy
| | 00:20 | because it has several line types.
Let's zoom in right down here and notice the
| | 00:25 | appearance of the line types in my drawing.
| | 00:28 | Now here is my problem. I'm going to
jump to model space. We'll zoom in on the
| | 00:32 | same area and notice my line types
don't look so good. In fact, they are
| | 00:38 | downright microscopic. I'll zoom back a
little bit. In reality, the line types
| | 00:43 | are being displayed the same size
in both places. The difference is the
| | 00:47 | geometry of my layout is being
represented quite a bit smaller. So, the line
| | 00:51 | types appear larger.
| | 00:52 | Now there is a system variable that
controls the size of our line types and
| | 00:56 | that variable is called LTSCALE and
we'll hit Enter. Notice that my LTSCALE is
| | 01:00 | set to the default of 1. So my line
types are being represented at a 1:1 size.
| | 01:06 | Now this is exactly what I want when I
plot my layouts. Unfortunately, since
| | 01:10 | there is only one setting, we set it
for our layouts that our plots look good,
| | 01:14 | but then in model space we have to
deal with small line types. That is until now.
| | 01:19 | Let's hit Escape. These is a system
variable now called MSLTSCALE and this guy
| | 01:25 | controls the line type scale in model
space. Now I also have to type this one.
| | 01:30 | Now MSLTSCALE is a toggle. So it has
two settings, 1 meaning on, 0 meaning off.
| | 01:36 | If we look, we can see that mine is
already turned on. In fact, any new drawing
| | 01:41 | created from AutoCAD 2008 and up has
this system variable turned on, by default.
| | 01:46 | If this variable is turned on, I can
control the scale of my line types in
| | 01:50 | model space with my Annotation Scale.
Let's hit Escape and let's say I'd like
| | 01:55 | to see my line types for a 1:40
scale plot. I can come down and click the
| | 01:59 | Annotation Scale. We'll set this to
1:40 and then I'll regenerate my drawing.
| | 02:04 | We'll click on Menu Browser and we'll
come down to View and select Regen.
| | 02:09 | Now my line types are scaled for a 1:40
scale plot. If I wanted to see the line
| | 02:13 | types at a scale of 1:20, I can
simply come down and change my Annotation
| | 02:17 | Scale. We can regenerate our drawing
and I can see the line types change accordingly.
| | 02:24 | So if I would like to plot this drawing
from model space or simply view my line
| | 02:28 | types such that they match my layout,
I can adjust my line type scale by
| | 02:32 | selecting an Annotation Scale.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Multi-Line Text ToolsJustifying multi-line text vertically| 00:00 | Most methods of text justification
control the horizontal position of our text.
| | 00:05 | For instance, we can left justify,
center justify and right justify our text
| | 00:10 | objects. If we create multiline text,
we have even more control because
| | 00:14 | multiline text can also be justified
vertically. In this lesson, we are going
| | 00:19 | to learn how to vertically
justify our multiline text.
| | 00:22 | On my screen I have got a mechanical
example. This guy is a metric drawing and
| | 00:26 | he was created such that each unit
equals one millimeter. Let's start out this
| | 00:30 | lesson by creating some sample
multiline text. To do that, I'm going to pan
| | 00:34 | this drawing over and I'm going to zoom
in a little and then I'm going to come
| | 00:38 | up and launch the Multiline Text tool.
| | 00:40 | Let's pick a point on screen and then
I'll click again to define the width of
| | 00:44 | my column. Then I'll type a note.
Note created using multiline text. I'm going
| | 00:52 | to zoom in on this guy a little bit
more and let's talk about justification.
| | 00:57 | If I look up in the Paragraph panel of my
ribbon and we take a look at the right side,
| | 01:01 | we can see a series of icons that
control the horizontal justification of my text.
| | 01:06 | You can see that I can Left justify,
Center and Right. I can also Full justify
| | 01:11 | and Distribute. Now, let's take a
look at the big Justification button.
| | 01:15 | If I click this, these settings control
the vertical justification of my text.
| | 01:19 | I'm going to select Middle Left and
notice my text is now middle left justified
| | 01:25 | within the column. Let me click the
tool again and we'll set this to Bottom Center.
| | 01:30 | Notice the change in my justification.
| | 01:32 | So not only do we have horizontal
justification options, we can also justify
| | 01:37 | our text vertically. Let me show you
where this comes in handy. I'm going to
| | 01:40 | hit Escape to get out of the command
and I'm not going to save my changes and
| | 01:44 | let's jump out and take a look at the
layout that was created for this drawing.
| | 01:47 | I'm going to click my Quick View
Layouts tool and we'll select the Layout
| | 01:51 | Preview and then we'll click on screen.
I'd like to take a look at this note.
| | 01:55 | Let's zoom in and we'll center this
guy on screen. As long as I'm here
| | 01:59 | I'm going to come down and click the Show
Lineweight icon such that we can see the
| | 02:03 | printable lineweights that are set for
this layout. Now the text that we see in
| | 02:06 | this box is going to change throughout
the design of the part. As an example,
| | 02:10 | I'm going to make a change to the text.
Let's double-click on this and
| | 02:14 | I'm going to remove some of this text.
We'll remove this such that it says Approved
| | 02:20 | for Production. Then I'll
click the X to close the editor.
| | 02:24 | Now here is my problem. My text isn't
staying centered within this box.
| | 02:28 | It would be nice if this text was
set up such that no matter what I type,
| | 02:31 | it always stayed centered within this
shape. Now that we know how to vertically
| | 02:35 | align our text, this is easy. I'm
going to select this. When I do, AutoCAD
| | 02:40 | shows me the grips to define the size
of my column. I'm going to select this
| | 02:44 | grip and I'm going to place it to the
endpoint right here and then I'll come
| | 02:47 | over and select this grip and
place it to the endpoint down here.
| | 02:51 | Then I'm going to
double-click to edit this text.
| | 02:53 | Let's come up to the Justification icon
and click and we'll set this to Middle
| | 02:57 | Center. Then we'll make it change to
our text. Let me drag across this and
| | 03:03 | we'll remove it. I'm going to change
the date. From now on, no matter how this
| | 03:12 | text changes, it will always remain
centered within the shape. Let's move up
| | 03:16 | and click the X to close the editor.
This concept applies to more than just
| | 03:20 | approval notes. Let me back up and
we'll pan up a little bit and take a look at
| | 03:24 | my title block.
| | 03:25 | Notice all the text sitting inside
rectangular shapes. If you want to make sure
| | 03:30 | all the text in your title block
remains centered, you can easily set that up
| | 03:33 | by vertically justifying your text to
the corners of your rectangles. I'm going
| | 03:38 | to select this text object. Let's
click the grip and we'll move it to the
| | 03:41 | endpoint here. We'll grab this one and
move it to the endpoint here. Then I'm
| | 03:45 | going to double-click to change this
text. We'll put a hard carriage return
| | 03:50 | here and then I'll come up and click
my Justification tool and we'll set this
| | 03:54 | to middle centered. When I'm finished
I'll click the X to close the editor.
| | 03:57 | If you find yourself wanting to change
the vertical alignment of some of your
| | 04:00 | existing multiline text, there is
another way we can do it. You can simply
| | 04:04 | select the object, come over to your
Property changer and we can change
| | 04:08 | its justification right here.
| | 04:11 | Having the ability to vertically
justify our multiline text makes it easy to
| | 04:15 | create, update or position any text
that falls within a rectangular shape.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adjusting line spacing| 00:00 | Back in the days of the typewriter, we
had two spacing options that we use to
| | 00:04 | type our documents: single space
and double space. Today when we create
| | 00:09 | multiline text in AutoCAD, we have
the exact same choices and much more.
| | 00:13 | In this lesson, we are going to look at
how we can precisely control the line
| | 00:17 | spacing of our text.
| | 00:18 | On my screen I have got an example of
some multiline text. We are going to use
| | 00:22 | this text to learn how to adjust our
line spacing. Now one way we can access
| | 00:26 | the line spacing is through the
multiline text editor itself. Let me
| | 00:30 | double-click on this text and if I
look in the Paragraph panel, I can come
| | 00:34 | right up here and click the Line
Spacing icon. Notice my settings. 1.0x means
| | 00:39 | single-spaced; 2.0x means double-spaced.
Let me click this option and we can
| | 00:44 | see the text change on screen. I'm
going to click the icon again. This time
| | 00:48 | we'll select 1.5 spaced text.
| | 00:51 | Now if I don't like the default choices,
I can come down here and select More.
| | 00:57 | This brings up the Paragraph dialog
box where I can dial up the exact line
| | 01:00 | spacing that I need. Let's say I
would like to push this text together such
| | 01:04 | that it is closer than single spaced text.
Now remember that single-spaced was 1x.
| | 01:09 | So I'm going to change this value
to 0.8 and we don't have to enter the x.
| | 01:14 | Let's click OK and notice the change.
| | 01:18 | So one way we can adjust our line
spacing is by using the icon located inside
| | 01:22 | the multiline text editor. Know this.
If you set your line spacing using this
| | 01:27 | icon, all further changes must be made
using this icon. Let me show you another
| | 01:32 | way we can adjust our line spacing. I'm
going to come down and click Clear Line
| | 01:36 | space to remove any line spacing from
this text and then I'm going to close
| | 01:40 | the text editor.
| | 01:42 | The way I like to change my line
spacing is by using my Property changer.
| | 01:45 | I'm to pan this over. I'm going to select
my text and will move over to Property
| | 01:51 | changer. Notice right here in the
Text area, I have a value for Line space
| | 01:55 | factor. A factor of 1 represents
single spaced text. So if I would like to
| | 02:00 | scrunch this text together, I can
change this to 0.8 and if I hit my Tab key,
| | 02:06 | notice the text instantly changes on
screen. Let's make it a little tighter.
| | 02:10 | I want to change this value to
0.7 and we'll hit the Tab key.
| | 02:14 | When I'm finished, I'll move outside
the palette and will let it collapse and
| | 02:17 | then I'll hit my Escape key to deselect
my text. One benefit of making my line
| | 02:22 | space change through the palette is
that I can change multiple MTEXT objects at
| | 02:26 | one time. For instance, I'm going to
back up here a little bit. We'll launch
| | 02:30 | the Copy command. Copy this guy over
to the right. Then I'll hit Escape.
| | 02:36 | Now I'm going to make a crossing window.
We'll select both of these guys.
| | 02:39 | Let's go back to the Property changer and
I'm going to change their Line space factor
| | 02:43 | to 1 and hit Tab and notice they both
change. I'm going to move outside the
| | 02:48 | palette and we'll hit Escape. Let's
take a look at where we might use this
| | 02:51 | feature in a practical example. Our
current drawing happens to have a layout
| | 02:55 | that's been set up, let's take a look at it.
| | 02:57 | I am going to click my Quick View
Layouts tool, we'll select the Layout Preview
| | 03:01 | and then we'll click on screen. What
we see on screen is a civil engineering
| | 03:05 | example. This happens to be a
topographic surveying of a vacant lot. Now I'm
| | 03:09 | interested in this text down here
in my title block. Let's zoom in.
| | 03:14 | Currently my drawing is called Existing
Conditions. I would like to change this
| | 03:18 | to Existing Conditions and Topographic
Survey. Let's double-click on the text,
| | 03:23 | I'm going to click right after this
word and I'm going to type And Topographic
| | 03:28 | Survey and I'll close the text editor.
| | 03:29 | Now here is my problem, this text
doesn't fit very well within my title block.
| | 03:34 | Let's try and squeeze the lines
together a little bit using our Property
| | 03:37 | changer. I'm going to select the text.
We'll go to the Property changer and
| | 03:41 | let's change its Line space factor to
0.75. Let me hit Tab. That looks good.
| | 03:48 | I'm going to move outside the
palette and will hit Escape to deselect.
| | 03:51 | Having precise control over our line
spacing makes our multiline text even more
| | 03:55 | powerful and when necessary, it allows
us to squeeze more text into a smaller space.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Controlling the display of fractions| 00:00 | AutoCAD takes the display of
fractions very seriously. It gives us complete
| | 00:04 | control over everything from stacking
method to alignment to text scaling.
| | 00:09 | AutoCAD is so passionate about
fractions, in fact, that it will look for
| | 00:12 | opportunities to help us with our
formatting. In this lesson, we are going to
| | 00:15 | learn how to control the
appearance of our fractions.
| | 00:17 | On my screen, I have got a civil
engineering example. This is a drawing of a
| | 00:21 | typical street cross-section. We
would use a cross-section like this to
| | 00:24 | identify the various depths of
material to be used to construct a residential
| | 00:29 | street. I'm going to zoom in a little
bit on my call-outs. If we look, we can
| | 00:33 | see we have three courses of material
to construct our street. My first course
| | 00:38 | is going to be an inch and a half in depth.
| | 00:40 | So I'm going double-click right here
and we'll type 1 1/2 inches. Notice before
| | 00:47 | I can even finish the fraction,
AutoCAD pops-up and says, "hey! It looks like
| | 00:51 | you are making a fraction, do you want
some help with this?" Let me move this
| | 00:54 | over, so we can see our text.
| | 00:56 | Now at this point if I was just to
click Cancel and say, "leave me alone", my
| | 00:59 | fraction would look exactly like what
we see on screen. Instead, if I would
| | 01:03 | like something a little bit more
fancy, I can convert my plain text to a
| | 01:07 | horizontal or a diagonal fraction.
Let's leave this at horizontal and
| | 01:11 | we'll click OK.
| | 01:12 | Notice the appearance of my fraction.
I'm going to hit space to finish my text
| | 01:16 | and then we'll close text editor. My
second course is also going to be an inch
| | 01:20 | and a half deep. So I'll double-click
on this text and we'll type 1 1/2 inches.
| | 01:27 | This time I'm going to select the
diagonal fraction, so we can see the
| | 01:30 | difference. Let's click OK, I'll hit my
space and then we'll close text editor.
| | 01:36 | My third course is going to be 10 1/2
inches deep. So I'm going to double-click
| | 01:40 | on this text, once again
we'll type 10 1/2 inches.
| | 01:46 | Now let's take a look at some of the
other settings in this dialog box.
| | 01:49 | I'm going to move this over, so we can see
our text as well. Right here I have got
| | 01:52 | a toggle for Enable AutoStacking. This
allows me to choose between horizontal
| | 01:57 | and diagonal. If I was to remove this
check and click OK, our fraction will
| | 02:01 | remain exactly as we see it on screen.
If Enable AutoStacking is turned on, I
| | 02:06 | can use this toggle to control whether
I see the space between my whole numbers
| | 02:10 | and my fractions.
| | 02:11 | Finally, notice I have an option at the
bottom that says Don't show this dialog
| | 02:14 | again. This means if I have a
particular way I would like to display my
| | 02:18 | fractions, I can adjust my settings.
For instance, we'll set this back to
| | 02:21 | horizontal and then I can put a check
in this box. AutoCAD will never pop-up
| | 02:25 | and try and help me again. This means
if I type another fraction, let's type a
| | 02:29 | space and we'll type 1/4 inch.
Notice my fraction instantly changes to my
| | 02:34 | desired settings.
| | 02:35 | Now this can be fantastic, until you
try and enter a date. A couple of spaces
| | 02:40 | and we'll type a date 01/20/2009 and
this obviously doesn't look right. In
| | 02:49 | AutoCAD's defense, it thought I was
making a fraction. Let's fix this. To do
| | 02:53 | that, I'm going to click-and-hold and
I'm going to drag over the fraction to
| | 02:57 | select it. Then I'm going to right-
click and I'll select Unstack from the menu.
| | 03:02 | This will remove my unstacked fraction.
| | 03:05 | Now the fraction we unstacked was a
horizontal fraction. I'm going to close my
| | 03:08 | text editor and we'll double-click
on this call-out, because I would like
| | 03:12 | unstack a diagonal fraction. We drag
across this one, we'll right-click and
| | 03:17 | we'll select Unstack.
| | 03:19 | Notice AutoCAD gave me a special
symbol. That's because it uses the pound
| | 03:23 | symbol as a designator to identify a
diagonal fraction. Since my fraction is
| | 03:27 | now unstacked, I can change this character
to a forward slash and I'm back in business.
| | 03:33 | We can also go the opposite way. Since
this text represents a fraction, I can
| | 03:37 | click-and-hold-and-drag across this
text and I can right-click and select
| | 03:42 | Stack. AutoCAD will convert it into a
stacked fraction. Let' look at some of
| | 03:46 | the other formatting options we have
available for our fractions. I'm going to
| | 03:50 | drag across this guy and I'm going to
right-click and I'm going to select Stack Properties.
| | 03:55 | Notice within this dialog box I can
change my fraction numbers, I can also come
| | 03:59 | down here and change the appearance
of my fraction. If I click the Style
| | 04:03 | flyout, I can see I can set this for a
Horizontal, Diagonal, or I have got two
| | 04:07 | other options, Tolerance and Decimal.
If you have any questions about these
| | 04:11 | options, simply hit the F1 key on
your keyboard and AutoCAD will bring up a
| | 04:15 | Help document that explains everything
in this dialog box in detail. I'm going
| | 04:19 | to hit Escape to clear the menu.
| | 04:21 | If I click this flyout, I can adjust
the vertical position of my fraction.
| | 04:25 | Currently, it's centered on my text but
I can also change this to Top or Bottom
| | 04:29 | justified. I can also adjust my
fractions Text size. Notice the fraction text
| | 04:35 | is slightly smaller than the rest of my
text. If I wanted to, I can set this to 100%.
| | 04:40 | Let's click OK. Notice my fraction
text now matches the text height of
| | 04:44 | the rest of my text string.
| | 04:46 | I am going to right-click on my
fraction one more time, since it's still
| | 04:49 | highlighted and let's come back down
to Stack Properties. One of the most
| | 04:53 | valuable buttons in this dialog box is
the AutoStack button. If I click this,
| | 04:57 | this brings back my AutoStack
Properties dialog box. Remember this is the one
| | 05:01 | where we checked Don't show me this
dialog again. Well, the AutoStack button is
| | 05:06 | the only way to get this dialog to come
back, if we want to remove this check.
| | 05:10 | Now that I have changed my settings,
I'm going to click OK and from now on each
| | 05:14 | time I create a fraction, AutoCAD will
once again ask me about the formatting.
| | 05:18 | Let's move up and click the X to close
this dialog box. I'm going to close my
| | 05:21 | text editor. Let's back up a little
bit. I'm going to pan this drawing down
| | 05:26 | because I would like to show you some
of the other things we can do with our
| | 05:28 | fraction formatting settings.
| | 05:30 | I am going to use this text. Let's
double-click. I'm going to hit Ctrl+A on my
| | 05:34 | keyboard to select all of this text.
I'm going to type a fraction but I'm going
| | 05:38 | to type it a different way. I'm going
to type 1^4. You see AutoCAD recognizes
| | 05:47 | this caret symbol as a divider
between your fraction numbers.
| | 05:50 | Watch this. If I click-and-drag
across this and then right-click and select
| | 05:54 | Stack, AutoCAD creates a stacked
fraction but the divider is invisible. Using
| | 06:00 | this technique, I can create
superscript or subscript text. Let's Backspace and
| | 06:04 | take this away.
| | 06:05 | Albert Einstein had a formula, E=mc2.
Well, I'm going to place a caret after my 2
| | 06:13 | because I would like this
number to be superscript.
| | 06:15 | Then I'll click-and-hold-and-drag across
these characters. If I right-click and select Stack,
| | 06:20 | we can close the text editor and
notice I have created superscript text.
| | 06:24 | We can also create subscript text if I
double-click on this. We'll click after
| | 06:29 | the string and let's say
we want to do a formula.
| | 06:31 | Water is considered H2O. So I'm going
to type H^2O. I'm placing the caret first
| | 06:39 | because I want the 2 on the bottom of
the fraction. So once I drag across these
| | 06:43 | characters, we'll right-click and
select Stack. When I'm finished, I'll come up
| | 06:47 | and close the text editor. No
matter how we may choose to display our
| | 06:51 | fractions, AutoCAD has discovered. By
recognizing how AutoCAD views the caret
| | 06:55 | symbol, we can leverage our fraction
formatting tools to create superscript and
| | 07:00 | subscript text.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating multiple columns of MTEXT| 00:00 | Sometimes the text in our documents can
get lengthy. In some cases, we can have
| | 00:04 | so much text that the column itself
is too tall to fit in our title block.
| | 00:08 | In this lesson, we are going to learn how
to divide up our multi-line text into columns.
| | 00:12 | If you would like to work along
with me, this drawing is located in the
| | 00:15 | Exercise Files folder and this is
the drawing number 04_general_notes.
| | 00:19 | On my screen, I have got an example of a
title block. This is an 11X17 inch layout
| | 00:24 | and I have included some dimensions
that give us the size of the usable area
| | 00:27 | within our title block. These
dimensions will come in handy a little bit later
| | 00:31 | when we have to divvy up this area into columns.
| | 00:34 | The first thing I need is a large
amount of text. To get that, I'm going to go
| | 00:38 | to the Help feature in AutoCAD. I'm
going to hit he F1 key. This will make
| | 00:43 | sense in just a second. I'm going to
come over to the left pane and I'm going
| | 00:46 | to make sure the Index tab is current.
Then I'm going to click in the keyword
| | 00:49 | area and I'm going to type wildcard.
Then we'll select the filtering layers by
| | 00:54 | document and click Display.
| | 00:57 | Then in the pane on the right, we are
going to make sure the Concept tab is
| | 01:00 | current. If I click-and-drag the slider,
we can see I have got a fair amount of
| | 01:04 | text. I'm going to place to this text
on my title block. Let me push this back
| | 01:09 | up. I'm going to click-and-hold right
here with my mouse. I'm going to pull
| | 01:13 | down and I'm going to select this text.
| | 01:16 | Now we don't have to select all of it.
I'm going to come all the way down until
| | 01:19 | we get to the table. Here we go, once
my text is selected, I'll right-click and
| | 01:23 | select Copy. We'll copy that text to
our clipboard. Then we'll come up and
| | 01:27 | close the Help feature. Let's create
some multi-line text. I'm going to come up
| | 01:31 | to the Annotation panel in my ribbon,
click the icon and we'll then click the
| | 01:35 | first corner of my column. Then I'll
pull over into the right to set my column
| | 01:40 | width and we'll click.
| | 01:42 | Now that I'm in the editor, I'm going
to right-click and select Paste. Then
| | 01:46 | we'll close the editor. Let's do a Zoom
Extents. Now we learned two things just
| | 01:51 | now. One, we can copy and paste into
our editor; and two, the amount of text
| | 01:56 | that we brought in is obviously too
much to fit in our title block in a single
| | 01:59 | column. That's all right because we
can easily divide this text up into
| | 02:03 | multiple columns.
| | 02:04 | One thing I want to mention before we
get started. Take a look at my current
| | 02:07 | zoom level, look at how my text appears
on screen. I'm going to double-click on
| | 02:11 | this text and pretend like I'm going
to make some changes. When I do, take a
| | 02:15 | look at my editor. AutoCAD
automatically increases the size of my text, so that
| | 02:19 | it's readable. AutoCAD does this as a
courtesy. This can also be a problem at
| | 02:23 | least in this session because if my
text editor gets large on the screen, I
| | 02:27 | can't see my columns in
context with my title block.
| | 02:30 | So let's close the text editor. What we
are going to do is trick AutoCAD. When
| | 02:34 | I say trick, I mean we are going to
zoom in close enough so that our text is
| | 02:38 | legible. To make our edits, we'll
double-click to bring up the editor. Then
| | 02:43 | we'll roll our mouse wheel backwards
and zoom out because our goal in this
| | 02:46 | lesson isn't editing text, as
much as it is creating columns.
| | 02:49 | I am going to pan this down a little
bit and we'll zoom it little bit on
| | 02:52 | screen. To convert this text into
columns, I'm going to come up to the Insert
| | 02:57 | panel on my ribbon and click the
Columns flyout. Now we have two choices,
| | 03:01 | Dynamic and Static. We are going to
look at Static first. Let's come over and
| | 03:05 | select 2 for 2 columns. When I do,
watch what happens to my text.
| | 03:10 | Notice that AutoCAD took the current
widths of my multi-line text and divided
| | 03:14 | it into 2 columns, which isn't very
helpful in this instance but it shows me
| | 03:17 | how the tool works. I'm going to move
up to the Options panel and click Undo.
| | 03:21 | Let's try and create some more
useful columns. First thing we'll do is
| | 03:25 | right-click on these arrows and then
I'm going to change my Mtext Width.
| | 03:30 | Let's set this to be 15.5 inches. Remember,
my total usable space is 16. We'll click OK.
| | 03:37 | Then I'll right-click on these arrows
and we'll set our Mtext Height to be 9
| | 03:42 | inches and I'll click OK. Let's back
up a little bit. We'll center this on
| | 03:46 | screen and we'll divide this into
columns again. I'm going to come up and click
| | 03:50 | the icon. Let's set this for Static and
this time we'll come down and select 3
| | 03:54 | columns. Notice we can see our columns
on screen. Now this text will flow from
| | 03:59 | one column to the other. For instance,
if I click in here and start hitting
| | 04:02 | my Enter key, notice how my text jumps
to the other column. Let me Backspace
| | 04:06 | to remove this.
| | 04:08 | Let's talk about how we can
make adjustments to our columns.
| | 04:10 | If I click-and-hold on these arrows at
the bottom and I push this up, I can adjust
| | 04:15 | the height of my columns. Let's pull
this back down. If I click-and-hold on
| | 04:19 | this diamond, I can adjust my column
width. If I click-and-hold on these
| | 04:24 | arrows, I can adjust the
overall width of my multi-line text.
| | 04:28 | Now what if we had very specific
dimensions we would like use for our columns?
| | 04:32 | Well, we can do that also. Once again,
I'm going to come up and click the
| | 04:35 | Columns icon and we'll come down and
select Column Settings. Notice I'm set for
| | 04:40 | Static. I have got 3 columns. Let's
change the column Height back to 9.
| | 04:45 | Let's change our column Width to 5 inches.
Then we'll set our Gutter. The gutter
| | 04:50 | happens to be the distance between the
columns. We'll set this to 0.25 and when
| | 04:55 | I hit my Tab key notice how AutoCAD
calculates the Total Width of my multi-line
| | 04:59 | text. When I click OK, I have got
three very precisely sized columns.
| | 05:04 | Let's move up and close the text editor.
I'm going to come over and click Undo
| | 05:08 | to go back where we started. Once again,
if I back up we can see this is one
| | 05:11 | big single column. Let's look at the
other method of creating columns, the
| | 05:15 | Dynamic method. I'm going to zoom in
close, such that my text is legible. Then
| | 05:20 | I'll double-click and then we'll
back up, so we can see our layout.
| | 05:23 | This time I'm going to move up and
click the Column icon and I'm going to
| | 05:26 | select Dynamic Columns. Now there is
two types Auto height and Manual height.
| | 05:30 | Let's set it for Auto and we don't see
anything happen immediately on screen.
| | 05:34 | Let me push this up just a little bit.
Then I'll click-and-hold on these arrows
| | 05:38 | and push it up. As soon as my text
exceeds my column height, AutoCAD
| | 05:42 | automatically creates a new column. If
I keep pushing up, as soon as my columns
| | 05:46 | reach the same height,
AutoCAD creates a third column.
| | 05:49 | So here is the difference between
the methods. With the Static method, we
| | 05:53 | determine our number of columns ahead
of time. With Dynamic, the amount of text
| | 05:57 | determines the numbers of columns.
Once our dynamic columns are created, we
| | 06:01 | have the same editing options. I can
adjust my Height by clicking-and-dragging
| | 06:05 | this arrow. I can adjust the Width of
the columns by clicking-and-dragging this
| | 06:08 | diamond. Notice if I drag it far
enough, I can create an additional column.
| | 06:12 | Finally, if I click-and-hold on these
arrows, I can adjust the overall width.
| | 06:17 | If I wanted to set specific column
dimensions, I can visit my Column Settings
| | 06:21 | dialog box and we can set
those just like we did before.
| | 06:25 | Now when we created these columns, we
set them to Auto height. Let me drag this
| | 06:29 | over a little bit and let's set this
to Manual height. When I click OK, watch
| | 06:33 | the bottom of my columns. Notice
that each one now has its own height
| | 06:37 | adjustment. So I can click this column
and push it up, I can click this column
| | 06:42 | and make an adjustment. If I push this
column up, I can create another column.
| | 06:46 | When I'm finished, I'll
hit X to close the editor.
| | 06:49 | Let me give you one more note with
regard to editing. We can also use our grips
| | 06:53 | to modify columns. Watch this. If I
select my multi-line text, I have got grips
| | 06:58 | that represent my heights, this grip
represent my column width and this grip
| | 07:02 | represents my overall width. By
dividing our multi-line text into columns,
| | 07:07 | we can easily fit large amounts of text
inside our title block. If we need to edit
| | 07:12 | the text later, we can be assured
that the text will flow properly from one
| | 07:16 | column to another.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Converting single-line text to multi-line text| 00:00 | In this session, I'm going to show you
your new favorite Text tool, especially
| | 00:04 | if you work with older drawings. This
tool allows us to convert single line
| | 00:07 | text to multi-line text. On my screen,
I have got an example of the layout and
| | 00:12 | in the upper left-hand corner of my
layout, I have got some text. Let's zoom
| | 00:16 | in, and we'll center this text on
screen. Now, this text represents some
| | 00:19 | general notes. These are some notes
you might see on a civil engineering plan set.
| | 00:24 | Here's my problem. If I click on
these text objects, I can see that each of
| | 00:28 | these guys is an individual single
line of text. Now, how does something like
| | 00:32 | this happen? Well, it can happen if
someone explodes multi-line text or this
| | 00:37 | could be text that was copied from an
older AutoCAD drawing that was created
| | 00:40 | before multi-line text existed. In
either case, this text is going to be very
| | 00:45 | difficult to edit because I have no word wrap.
| | 00:48 | Any changes I make are going to be made
to the single line only, which usually
| | 00:52 | means I have to copy and paste text
from one line to the other. Instead,
| | 00:56 | I'm going to convert these text objects
to multi-line text. Let me hit Escape a
| | 01:00 | couple of times to deselect, and to
convert these entities, we are going to use
| | 01:04 | an Express tool. Now, the Express tools
are not found on the ribbon. We have to
| | 01:08 | access those through the Menu Browser.
| | 01:10 | So I'm going to come up and Click.
We'll come down to the Express menu,
| | 01:14 | we'll come over on up and select text, and
then we'll select Convert Text to Mtext.
| | 01:19 | And then I'll select my first paragraph,
and I'll right-click. Now, it doesn't
| | 01:23 | look like much happened, but if we
click on the text now, we can see that it's
| | 01:27 | been converted into multi-line text.
This means I now have word wrap, and I can
| | 01:31 | click my grips to adjust my Column Width.
This text is much easier to edit than
| | 01:36 | it was before.
| | 01:37 | Now, instead of just converting the
one paragraph, let's convert everything.
| | 01:41 | I'm going to click my Undo button a
couple of times to put this text back the
| | 01:44 | way it was. Then we'll go back to our
Express tools, we'll select Text, and
| | 01:48 | then we'll select Convert Text To Mtext,
and we'll select everything and right-click.
| | 01:55 | Okay. Now, the command is great, but
it's not the magic bullet. Unfortunately,
| | 01:58 | it's not smart enough to keep track of
all of your formatting. Now, this isn't
| | 02:02 | a problem. This is still
fairly easy to clean up.
| | 02:05 | Since these notes were numbered, what
I'm going to do is click in front of each
| | 02:08 | of these numbers, and we'll hit a
couple of carriage returns. Now, we have
| | 02:13 | converted our final
paragraphs into easily editable Mtext.
| | 02:17 | You know what, why stop there? Let's
convert this into a real numbered list.
| | 02:21 | I'm going to hit Ctrl+A on my keyboard
to select all of this text, and then I'm
| | 02:25 | going to come up and click my List
button, and we'll select Numbered List. Now,
| | 02:29 | AutoCAD has given me a fresh set of
numbers. So let's highlight these existing
| | 02:34 | guys, and we'll delete them.
| | 02:36 | When I'm finished, I'll click the X to
close the text editor. As you can see in
| | 02:40 | just a couple of seconds, I went
from horrible to easily changeable fully
| | 02:44 | formatted Mtext. Just think, never
again do we have to fight with a paragraph
| | 02:48 | that was created with single line text.
Using the Text to Mtext Express tool,
| | 02:53 | we can easily convert our
single line text to multi-line text.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding a background mask| 00:01 | Sometimes your drawings can become so
busy that it's hard to find an open space
| | 00:04 | to put your notes. In this lesson
we're going to learn how to make our text
| | 00:07 | easier to position and easier to read
by using a background mask. On my screen
| | 00:12 | I have got a civil engineering
example. This is a drawing of a proposed
| | 00:16 | sub-division. Now this drawing
contains a lot of line work, and generally
| | 00:20 | speaking the more line work you have
in a drawing, the harder it is to place your notes.
| | 00:24 | Inevitably your text ends up sitting
up top of your lines and it becomes
| | 00:28 | difficult to read. I'm going to zoom in
on the bottom portion of my drawing.
| | 00:32 | I have got a label down here that
identifies this existing sub division.
| | 00:36 | Now my label is sitting on top of a lot of
lines. Because of this it may be confusing
| | 00:40 | or difficult to read when I create
my plot. Let's fix this by applying a
| | 00:45 | Background Mask. To do that I'm going
to click on this multi line text object
| | 00:49 | to select it.
| | 00:50 | Background masks only work with multi-
line text. Now I'm going to come over to
| | 00:54 | the Property Changer, and if I look
in the text area, if I come all the way
| | 00:57 | down under Background mask, I'm going
to click in this field and then I'm going
| | 01:01 | to click the Ellipses button. I'm
going to come up and click Use background
| | 01:05 | mask, this turns on the Masking feature.
| | 01:07 | If I come down a little bit I have got
the Border offset factor, this controls
| | 01:11 | the size of my mask around my text.
For right now I'm going to leave this at
| | 01:15 | the default. Let's take a look at
Fill Color. This controls the color of my
| | 01:19 | mask. If I click this flyout I can
select from any color available in AutoCAD.
| | 01:23 | I'm going to hit Cancel. Probably our
best choice in this situation is to use
| | 01:27 | the drawing background color.
| | 01:29 | When finished I'll come up and click OK
and notice how my text is now hiding or
| | 01:34 | masking the line work behind it. This
can make your text much easier to read in
| | 01:38 | a busy drawing. If you would like to
edit your background mask one thing you
| | 01:42 | can do is click on these grips and you
can drag these back and forth to adjust
| | 01:46 | its size. If you would like to tighten
up the mask around your text, we can go
| | 01:50 | back to the Property Changer, we can
come back down and click the Ellipses and
| | 01:55 | I'm going to change my
Border offset factor to 1.
| | 01:58 | And when I click OK watch my mask.
Notice how it's much tighter around my text.
| | 02:03 | When I'm finished editing, I'll hit my
Escape key. Now you may be wondering if
| | 02:06 | it's possible to apply a background
mask when you create your multi-line text.
| | 02:10 | I'm going to back up a little bit we'll
pan this over and I'm going to create a
| | 02:14 | new multi-line text object. I'm going
to come up and launch the tool, click on
| | 02:18 | Screen and then I'll click to define
my column. After I have entered my text,
| | 02:22 | I'm going to come up to my Options
panel and click the Options button and if I
| | 02:26 | come right down here I can select
Background mask from the menu. Once again
| | 02:30 | we'll turn the feature on, we'll
leave its offset factor to 1.5 and we'll
| | 02:34 | accept the drawing
background color and click OK.
| | 02:38 | When I'm finished I'll click the X to
close the editor. One important note, you
| | 02:41 | background mask is affected by your
draw order. So if you apply a Background
| | 02:46 | mask to an existing text object you
need to make sure that text is set to front
| | 02:50 | for the mask to work properly. For
example if I select this text and I come up
| | 02:55 | and click my Draw Order flyout and I
send this text to the back of my drawing,
| | 03:00 | notice how it looks like my
background masking is no longer working.
| | 03:03 | Let's click the object again. We'll
come back up to our Draw Order flyout and
| | 03:07 | we'll bring this guy to the front and
notice that my mask now works just fine.
| | 03:12 | Using a background mask can make it
much easier to place notes in a busy
| | 03:16 | drawing. Since the mask hides
everything behind your text, you can place your
| | 03:20 | notes just about anywhere while
still being able to read the content.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. TablesCreating and navigating tables| 00:01 | Creating a table used to be a painful
process. All the lines had to be drawn
| | 00:04 | manually and the text entries were
individual objects. Back in the old days
| | 00:09 | the only thing more difficult than
creating a table was editing a table. Today,
| | 00:13 | table creation is a completely
automated process and edits can be made in
| | 00:17 | seconds. In this lesson we are
going to learn how to create a table.
| | 00:20 | Now on my screen, I have got an
example of a table. This guy was created the
| | 00:24 | old-fashioned way. That means that
every one of these objects is an individual
| | 00:29 | entity. That means that this table was
difficult to create and it's even more
| | 00:33 | difficult to edit. Let's see if we
can recreate this table using an AutoCAD
| | 00:38 | table object.
| | 00:39 | I am going to pan this over so we
have some room and to create a table
| | 00:43 | I'm going to come up to the Annotation
panel in my ribbon and I'm going to click
| | 00:47 | the Table icon. Let's talk a little
bit about the settings that we see on screen.
| | 00:51 | Right up here I can select my
table style, this setting controls the
| | 00:55 | appearance of my table. Now currently
I only have one style in my drawing,
| | 01:00 | the Standard style. If I would like to
create a new table style at this time, I can
| | 01:04 | simply click this icon.
| | 01:06 | Let's hit Escape and we'll talk about
insertion options. We are going to accept
| | 01:11 | the default and start from an empty
table. There are also two other ways to
| | 01:15 | insert a table: from a data link, in
this case our data would be coming from an
| | 01:19 | external file like Microsoft Excel, or
we can create a table from objects that
| | 01:23 | have been extracted from our drawing.
If you would like more information about
| | 01:27 | these options or anything else related
to tables, you can simply come down and
| | 01:30 | click this hyperlink and AutoCAD will
direct you to the information you need.
| | 01:34 | In the Preview area, we can see what
our current table style looks like.
| | 01:38 | Let's talk about Insertion behavior.
Once again I'm going to keep this at the default.
| | 01:42 | This allows us to pick a point
on screen to determine the location of
| | 01:45 | our table. If I have to select Specify
Window I can determine the location and
| | 01:50 | size of my table by defining a window.
| | 01:53 | Probably the most important settings we
have are Column & row. This is where we
| | 01:57 | determine the size and number of our
columns and rows. Since we are duplicating
| | 02:01 | an existing table, let me drag this
over and let's take a look at how many
| | 02:04 | columns we have. Looks like we have
three. Let me drag this back. Now how many
| | 02:09 | rows do we have? Notice this says Data
Rows. If we look at the preview we can
| | 02:13 | see that the Data rows do not
include the Header and the Title.
| | 02:17 | If I move over here I can count up my
rows and it looks like I have seven Data rows.
| | 02:22 | Once again the default setting
is going to work just fine. Now,
| | 02:26 | if your default settings don't match mine,
simply change yours to the value you see on screen.
| | 02:30 | Finally, I can set my cell
styles. Notice I have three types.
| | 02:35 | The Title cell, the Header
cell and the Data cell.
| | 02:38 | Now if I wanted to, I could create an
entire table of Data cells. Notice my Preview.
| | 02:43 | Instead I'm going to create more
by traditional table with a Title cell on top,
| | 02:48 | followed by Header cells just
beneath it and then Data cells.
| | 02:53 | Let me come down and click OK. Notice
I'm holding my table with my cursor.
| | 02:57 | I'm going to back up just a little bit
and we'll place this guy on screen and when
| | 03:01 | I do, AutoCAD drops me
right into the Title cell.
| | 03:05 | So I'm going to type Sanitary Service
Locations. Now before I finish this cell,
| | 03:12 | take a look at my ribbon. Each one
of these cells acts like a miniature
| | 03:15 | multiline text editor. Also notice that
my columns are lettered and my rows are
| | 03:20 | numbered just like they are in
Microsoft Excel. Let's click the X
| | 03:23 | to close the text editor.
| | 03:24 | Let me show you how we can add text to
a cell. To do that I'll place my cursor
| | 03:29 | inside the cell and I'll double-click.
Since this is my header, we'll type Lot #.
| | 03:35 | If I would like to jump from one
cell to another, there are a few ways
| | 03:38 | we can do this. If I hit my Enter key,
I'll move down one cell. Let's type 95 and
| | 03:44 | we'll hit Enter again, type 96 and hit Enter.
| | 03:47 | If I hold my Shift key and hit Enter,
I can move up one cell. Let's move up one more.
| | 03:53 | If I hit my Tab key, I can move
to the right one cell. I'm going to jump
| | 03:59 | one more to the right by hitting Tab
and we'll type 138. If I hold Shift+Tab
| | 04:05 | I can move to the left one cell.
Using these keyboard shortcuts I can easily
| | 04:09 | navigate to any cell in my table. I'm
going to Shift+Enter to move up one cell
| | 04:14 | and we'll enter the
header for the middle column.
| | 04:20 | Notice how AutoCAD automatically word
wraps my text such that it fits within
| | 04:24 | my cell. Let's hit Tab and we'll enter
the other header. When I hit Enter to
| | 04:32 | jump out of this cell, notice how
AutoCAD scales the height of the cell to
| | 04:35 | accommodate my text. Now what if I
would like to create a hard carriage return?
| | 04:40 | Let me close my text editor and I'm
going to double-click in this header.
| | 04:44 | We'll click after the word Lot. If I hold
my Alt key and hit Enter I can force a
| | 04:50 | carriage return within a cell. All of
these keyboard shortcuts are the exact
| | 04:54 | same in Microsoft Excel. I'm going to
Tab over and I'll hit Enter a couple of
| | 04:58 | times and we'll finish this column.
| | 05:07 | Entering data is extremely easy inside
an AutoCAD table. Let me click the X to
| | 05:11 | close the editor. I'm going to zoom in
a little bit. Let's look at something
| | 05:15 | else we can do. Notice how my lot
numbers increment up by one. Rather than
| | 05:19 | entering the rest of the numbers, I'm
going to click once inside this cell and
| | 05:23 | take a look at this diamond-shaped grip.
| | 05:25 | This guy represents Auto-fill. If I
click on this grip and pull down and click
| | 05:30 | near the bottom of my table, AutoCAD
will finish my list of numbers for me.
| | 05:34 | I can also use this feature to copy text.
Let me click in this cell, I'll grab
| | 05:39 | the Auto-fill and we'll pull this down
a few cells and click. Now that time
| | 05:44 | my running objects snap got in the way.
No matter. I'll double-click inside this cell,
| | 05:48 | I'll change this guy to 126,
then I'll close my text editor.
| | 05:53 | We will click one more time in the cell
and then we'll drag Auto-fill down, and
| | 05:58 | when I'm finished I'll hit Escape.
Now I just showed you a quick way to
| | 06:01 | auto-fill your cells. Let me show you
a quick way to delete the contents of
| | 06:05 | your cells. Watch this. I'm going to
click and hold inside this cell and
| | 06:09 | I'm going to pull down and create a
crossing window around these other cells,
| | 06:13 | and when I release AutoCAD
selects every one of those guys.
| | 06:17 | I can then hit the Delete key on my
keyboard to clear the contents. In this
| | 06:21 | case I would like to keep my data so
I'm going to click the Undo icon to bring
| | 06:24 | it back. As you can see it's very easy
to create a table in AutoCAD and since
| | 06:30 | the tables function just like Microsoft
Excel adding your data is simple and intuitive.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Editing table geometry| 00:01 | Since our tables are objects rather
than individual entities, making changes
| | 00:04 | isn't a problem. In this lesson we are
going to learn how to revise the grid
| | 00:08 | portion of our table. On my screen you
can see that I have got a soil erosion
| | 00:11 | control table. You might see a table
like this on a set of engineering plans.
| | 00:15 | Now this table was created using stock
default generic settings. As you can see,
| | 00:20 | my column widths are similar and each
of my cells is approximately the same size.
| | 00:24 | We are going to use this table
to learn how to edit our grid. I'm going
| | 00:27 | to start by clicking the edge of the table
and when I do you can see a series of grips.
| | 00:32 | Now if I hover over a grip, AutoCAD
will tell me exactly what that grip does.
| | 00:36 | All of the grips on this table work
the same way. So since this one say Move Table,
| | 00:40 | if I click this, I can move the
table some place else. Now I want to be
| | 00:44 | careful on my running object snaps.
In fact I'm going to come down and turn
| | 00:47 | those off momentarily and
let's place our table up here.
| | 00:51 | Notice the other three corners have
triangular grips. If I click this one,
| | 00:55 | I can uniformly adjust the widths.
Let's hit Escape. This one uniformly adjusts
| | 01:01 | the height, we'll hit Escape and this
one adjusts both the width and the height.
| | 01:06 | Now notice as I push this up, there
is a limit to how short this table will get.
| | 01:10 | Let's click to accept the height.
That's because I can't make my table any
| | 01:14 | smaller than the data contained
within the cells. If I wanted to make this
| | 01:18 | table any shorter, I would have to
edit this text and make it smaller. Let me
| | 01:22 | select this table again. Notice I get
grips at the tops of my columns. These
| | 01:26 | guys allow me to change my column width.
| | 01:28 | For instance, if I click this grip and
move left and right, I can click to set
| | 01:33 | my new width and notice I have
actually changed the width of two columns
| | 01:36 | because my overall table width stayed
the same. If I click this again and hold
| | 01:41 | down my Ctrl key and move left and
right, I can adjust the column width by
| | 01:45 | adjusting the overall width of the table.
| | 01:47 | Let's click again to set our new width.
I'm going to hit Escape to deselect and
| | 01:52 | let's see how we can make even more
precise changes to our grid. I'm going to
| | 01:56 | zoom in on this cell. We'll center it
on screen. If I click once inside this
| | 02:01 | cell, notice AutoCAD gives me a grip
on each of the sides. I can use these
| | 02:05 | grips to adjust the width and the
height of my cell. For instance, we'll click
| | 02:09 | this grip and we'll drag it over to
here, we can click this grip and we can
| | 02:13 | drag it down or we can click again and
move up and click to adjust the height
| | 02:18 | one more time.
| | 02:19 | Now you are probably wondering if it's
possible to use specific dimensions to
| | 02:22 | size our cells, and yes this is
possible. We can do that using the Property
| | 02:26 | changer. Let me pan this over. As long
as my cell is selected, let me come over
| | 02:31 | to the Property Changer and notice I
can specify a width and height right here.
| | 02:36 | Let's change the width of this cell to
1.25. Now I'll hit Enter and we'll move
| | 02:42 | outside the palette and I'll pan this
guy over. I'm going to zoom back a little bit.
| | 02:46 | Let's change the width of this cell to
4 inches. Once again I'll select,
| | 02:50 | we'll come over to the Property Changer
and we'll adjust the width. When I'm finished,
| | 02:55 | I'll move outside the palette,
we'll hit Escape and we'll back a little bit.
| | 03:00 | You know what, now that I have some
extra space around this text, let's make
| | 03:03 | the table a little shorter. To do that
I'll select the table, we'll grab this
| | 03:08 | grip and we'll push up and then I'll
release. If we look at the right side of
| | 03:12 | the table, we can see that I have a
column that isn't being used. Let's look at
| | 03:16 | how I can remove a column from a table.
| | 03:18 | What we'll do is we'll click once
inside any of these cells on this side; this
| | 03:22 | gives me access to my Table tools
along the top of the screen. I'm going to
| | 03:26 | come down to the Column panel in my
ribbon and I can select Delete Column.
| | 03:30 | Notice we can use the same technique to
delete rows. Let me click the icon and
| | 03:35 | notice my column is gone. At this
point I'm going to hit my Escape key to
| | 03:38 | deselect, pan this guy over to the right.
| | 03:41 | Let's say I would like to add a column
on the left side of my table. To do that
| | 03:45 | I'll click once in any of these cells
on this side, I'll come up to my Columns
| | 03:49 | panel in the ribbon and notice I can
insert a column to the left or right and
| | 03:53 | this procedure also works for the rows.
Let's select Insert Left and notice I
| | 03:58 | have a new column. I'm going to hit
Escape and we'll center this table on screen.
| | 04:01 | Now as I look at my table, these
control measures fall into two specific
| | 04:06 | groups. So I'm going to create a new
header by double-clicking in this cell and
| | 04:11 | I'm going to type Control Measure Group.
I'm going to hit Enter to jump down
| | 04:17 | one cell and then I'll enter my first
group name, Vegetative Soil Cover.
| | 04:23 | Now, each of these first three control
measures falls under this same group. Well,
| | 04:27 | instead of putting these group names
in these three cells, I'm going to merge
| | 04:31 | these three cells together.
| | 04:33 | To do that I'm going to close my text
editor and then I'm going to select the
| | 04:36 | cells. I'm going to place my cursor
inside this cell and I'm going to click and
| | 04:40 | hold and as I drag down with my mouse,
I'm creating a crossing selection, when
| | 04:44 | I release, AutoCAD selects all of
those cells and I'll come up to the Merge
| | 04:48 | panel and I'll select Merge Cells,
Merge All and those three cells become one.
| | 04:54 | At any point if I wanted to switch
these back, I could come up and select
| | 04:57 | Unmerge Cells. I'm going to come down
and merge the remaining three. Let me
| | 05:01 | click and hold and drag across these
cells, we'll release and then I'll come up
| | 05:06 | and click Merge Cells, Merge All and
since the cell is highlighted, I'm going
| | 05:10 | to type my other control group name.
This is the Non-Vegetative Soil Cover and
| | 05:18 | when I'm finished, I'll click
the X to close the text editor.
| | 05:21 | Whether our changes require specific
measurements or simple grip editing,
| | 05:25 | AutoCAD gives us complete
control over the geometry of our table.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Formatting table data| 00:00 | If you are familiar with Microsoft
Excel, you will find that AutoCAD provides
| | 00:04 | many of the same formatting options for
your data. In this lesson we are going
| | 00:08 | to learn how to control the
appearance of the data within our cells.
| | 00:11 | On my screen I have got an example of
a revision table. You might see a table
| | 00:15 | like this on the cover of a set of
plans. We use this table to keep track of
| | 00:19 | the revisions made to the plan set.
Looking at the column, I can see that we
| | 00:23 | have entries for the revision number,
the affected sheets, the remarks or the
| | 00:27 | reason why we made the
revision and the revision date.
| | 00:30 | We are going to be using this table to
learn how to adjust the formatting of
| | 00:33 | our cells. The first formatting change
I would like to make involves this text.
| | 00:38 | I would like to make this a little
bit smaller. To do that, I'm going to
| | 00:41 | double-click in this cell. This gives
me access to my cell contents. Notice
| | 00:45 | when I do, we have the same tools
available as when we are editing multiline
| | 00:49 | text. Knowing that, I'm going to click-
and-drag across all of these text and
| | 00:54 | I'm going to come down and change its
height to .18 and as long as I'm here,
| | 00:58 | I'm going to change the style as well.
Let me click the Style flyout and I'm
| | 01:02 | going to set these to the slanted style.
When I'm finished, I'll come down and
| | 01:06 | click the X to close the editor.
| | 01:08 | Now what if I like the formatting of
this text and I would like to apply it to
| | 01:12 | some of the other cells in my table.
To do that, I'm going to click once in
| | 01:16 | this cell, this gives me access to my
Table tools. I'm going to come up to the
| | 01:20 | Cells Styles panel and click Match
Cell. And then if we look at the command
| | 01:25 | line, we can see that we need to select
our source cell, I'll click in this one
| | 01:28 | and then I'll click inside this cell
and this one and this one and this one and
| | 01:34 | when I'm finished, I'll right-click.
| | 01:35 | Let's make a change to the alignment.
Alignment controls where our data is
| | 01:40 | inside the cell. Looking at this
I can see they are all centered nicely.
| | 01:44 | Let's change this one. I'm going to click
once inside the cell and I'll click the
| | 01:48 | Alignment flyout and notice all of
the alignment options that we have.
| | 01:52 | I'm going to set this to middle left and
notice how my text adjusts inside the cell.
| | 01:57 | Now I'm going to pan over, let's zoom
in on this text a little bit. Notice it's
| | 02:02 | not exactly middle left justified. We
have a little gap here between the edge
| | 02:06 | of the cell in our text. This gap is
called the cell margin. Let me show you
| | 02:11 | where we can go to adjust our margins.
| | 02:13 | As long as this cell is selected, I'm
going to come over to my Property Changer
| | 02:17 | and if I come right down here, I have
settings for both the horizontal and the
| | 02:20 | vertical cell margin. I'm going to
click on Horizontal and we'll set this to .8
| | 02:25 | and I'll hit my Tab key and notice how
my text updates. As long as we are in
| | 02:29 | the Property Changer, notice some of
the other settings available with regard
| | 02:33 | to formatting in text. If you are
ever in doubt about where you can go to
| | 02:37 | adjust a setting, or if you would
like to do some exploration, don't forget
| | 02:40 | about your Property Changer. I'm
going to move outside the palette and
| | 02:43 | we'll hit Escape to deselect our table and
let's do a Zoom Extents to center this guy on screen.
| | 02:48 | Let's talk a little bit about the
format of our cell data. To do that I'm going
| | 02:52 | to start filling out my table. I'm
going to come over to the revision number
| | 02:55 | and double-click. I'm going to type 1
and I'll hit Tab to jump to the next column.
| | 03:00 | Notice how AutoCAD handled my 1.
Just like Microsoft Excel, AutoCAD
| | 03:05 | recognized that data was a number and
it's right justified within the cell.
| | 03:09 | For my Sheet # I'm going to type 25
and hit Tab, for my Remarks, I'm going to
| | 03:13 | type Per County Review and I'll hit Tab
and then I'll enter my date. I'm going
| | 03:20 | to type 01-22 and I'll hit
Enter to jump down a cell.
| | 03:26 | Notice how AutoCAD recognized that was
a date. You see as we enter data into
| | 03:30 | our table, AutoCAD is constantly
reviewing what we type and it's making
| | 03:34 | formatting decisions for us
based on what it thinks we need.
| | 03:37 | Let's take a look at the formatting
style that's applied to these cells. Now,
| | 03:41 | I'm currently in the text editor. If
I hit my Escape key, I can jump to the
| | 03:45 | Table Editor, I'm going to come up to
the Cell Format panel and I'm going to
| | 03:49 | click the Data Format flyout. Notice
the settings are very similar to what we
| | 03:54 | have in Microsoft Excel. Generally
speaking, these options control the
| | 03:57 | appearance of our data.
| | 03:59 | If you have any questions about any of
these settings, simply hover over them
| | 04:02 | with your cursor and AutoCAD will give
you more information. By default, all of
| | 04:06 | our cells are set to General. General
means that AutoCAD is going to keep on an
| | 04:10 | eye on what you type and attempt to
make formatting decisions for you. Now I
| | 04:13 | don't want to leave my formatting to
chance. I'm quite certain everything in
| | 04:17 | this column is going to be a date. Let
me hit my Escape key to clear this menu
| | 04:21 | and I'm going to click and hold and
drag and select all of these cells and then
| | 04:26 | I'm going to come up and click Data
Format and we'll set this to Date.
| | 04:30 | If I would like to take it one step
further, I could click this flyout and come
| | 04:33 | down to Custom Table Cell Format.
Notice that since this cell is set to date, I
| | 04:38 | can come over and I can select the
specific format I would like my data to
| | 04:42 | appear. I'm going to go with the four-
digit year and the slashes and I'll click OK.
| | 04:47 | Notice my data updates and now if I
click inside one of these cells and we type
| | 04:51 | a new date, 01-24 and hit Enter,
AutoCAD automatically recognizes that's a date
| | 04:58 | and it properly formats my data.
| | 05:00 | Having formatting assigned to these
cells means our data is going to be
| | 05:03 | consistent and it's going
to be very easy to enter.
| | 05:06 | Let's come back over to my first
column. Now this is a number but I'm never
| | 05:10 | going to be adding my revision
numbers together. So I'm going change the
| | 05:13 | formatting of these cells. I'm going
to hit Escape to deselect and then I'll
| | 05:17 | click in this cell and I'll pull down
and select the entire column and I'm
| | 05:20 | going to set this to Text. Text means
whatever I type in the cell it's going to
| | 05:25 | appear exactly as I type it and as
long as we are here, let's change the
| | 05:29 | alignment. I'm going to click the
flyout and I'm going to set this to Top
| | 05:32 | Center. I can't stress enough how
important the text formatting option is.
| | 05:37 | You see the General format may cause
some unexpected changes to your text.
| | 05:41 | For instance, I'm going to click inside
this cell and let's say that we are
| | 05:44 | multiple sheets affected, I'm going to
type 1, 5 and hit Enter. Notice AutoCAD
| | 05:50 | thinks I'm entering a coordinate and
I'm not, so I'm going to hit Escape to
| | 05:54 | deselect. Let's hit Escape again to
deselect the table and we'll click Undo and
| | 06:00 | I'm going to change the formatting
of all of these cells to be text.
| | 06:03 | Let's click right here and we'll
drag across all of them and release.
| | 06:07 | We'll come up to Data Format and we'll
select Text and once again as long as I'm
| | 06:12 | here, let's change our alignment to
Top Center Justified. When I'm finished
| | 06:16 | I'll hit Escape and now no matter
what I type in these cells, my text will
| | 06:21 | always appear the same way as I enter it.
| | 06:24 | The more you use table objects in
AutoCAD, the more you will realize that each
| | 06:27 | table acts like a miniature Microsoft
Excel spreadsheet inside your AutoCAD document.
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| Inserting formulas| 00:01 | AutoCAD table objects can act just
like miniature spreadsheets within our
| | 00:04 | drawings. Not only can we add
data to a table but we can also apply
| | 00:08 | mathematical calculations to our data.
In this lesson, we are going to learn
| | 00:12 | how to insert formulas into our table.
If you would like to work along with me,
| | 00:16 | this drawing is located in the exercise_
files folder and this is drawing number four,
| | 00:20 | inserting_formulas.
| | 00:21 | Now, on my screen I have got an
example of a Land Use Data table. A landscape
| | 00:26 | architect may use a table like this
to identify the land use areas for a
| | 00:30 | proposed subdivision. If we take a
look at the data, on the left, we can see
| | 00:33 | the various types of land usage.
Moving to the right, we can see the area in
| | 00:38 | acres of each of these and in the
column on the right I would like to show each
| | 00:41 | of these areas as a
percentage of the overall site.
| | 00:45 | So, the first thing we have to do is
find the total area of our site. So, I
| | 00:49 | need to add up these values. Now,
I could do this with a calculator,
| | 00:52 | but it isn't necessary, we can do the
calculation directly within the table. I'm going
| | 00:56 | to come down and click once inside
this cell. This brings up my Table tools.
| | 01:02 | Then I'm going to come up to the
Insert panel and I'm going to click the
| | 01:04 | Formula button.
| | 01:06 | Notice that we have several of the
same formula options that we have in
| | 01:09 | Microsoft Excel. We are going to be
using the Sum option. If you have any
| | 01:13 | questions about the others, place your
cursor over the Option and AutoCAD will
| | 01:17 | give you more information. You can
also hit the F1 key on your keyboard to
| | 01:21 | access the Help feature.
| | 01:22 | I am going to select Sum and then I
need to identify the cells I would like to
| | 01:26 | add together. I'm going to do that by
clicking once in this cell and then I'm
| | 01:30 | going to pull down, notice I'm creating
a window, I'll then click in this cell
| | 01:34 | to finish my selection and AutoCAD
used my window to harvest the cell names.
| | 01:39 | At this point I can hit Enter and I
can see the total sum. Let's zoom in,
| | 01:44 | notice my number looks different, this
is a special number, it's called a field
| | 01:49 | and it has a gray background as a
visual cue that this number is the result of
| | 01:52 | a calculation. By the way, this gray
color will not show up when we plot.
| | 01:57 | Now just because this is a field
doesn't mean we can't format the text.
| | 02:01 | Let's say I would like to make a change.
Notice that this guy is to four decimal
| | 02:04 | spaces while the rest of my data is to
two. I'm going to click in this cell,
| | 02:09 | we'll come up to Data Format and I'm going to
come down and click Custom Table Cell Format.
| | 02:14 | In the Precision area I can click my
flyout and I can set this to two decimal
| | 02:18 | spaces. Now, if we want to take it one
step further, I can click the Additional
| | 02:22 | Format button. Notice I can see a
preview of my cell data right here.
| | 02:27 | Since this happens to be a total in acres,
I'm going to come down to the Suffix field
| | 02:32 | and click. I'll hit space and I'll
type AC.. Once again, notice my Preview.
| | 02:38 | Let's come down and click OK and
we'll click OK. When I finished I'll hit
| | 02:41 | Escape to deselect my table.
I'm going to back up a little bit.
| | 02:45 | Now on this column on the right, I
would like to calculate each of these areas
| | 02:49 | as a percentage of my overall site.
Since this table works like a miniature
| | 02:53 | spreadsheet, we can do this just like
we would in Microsoft Excel. I'm going to
| | 02:57 | double-click in this cell and then
I'm going to type an equation, =b3/b8.
| | 03:00 | Let me back up just a little bit, so
I'm dividing the contents of b3 by the
| | 03:09 | contents of b8 and I'll hit Enter.
Notice I have my value. Now rather than
| | 03:14 | entering my formula in the rest of
these cells, I'm going to click in this one.
| | 03:18 | We'll click one more time and I'll
select my Auto Fill and I'll pull it right
| | 03:22 | down to here and click and we'll hit Escape.
| | 03:25 | Now this isn't exactly what I wanted,
let's take a look at what happened.
| | 03:28 | I'm going to double-click in this cell,
when I did my Auto Fill, AutoCAD
| | 03:32 | incremented both of my cell names. Now
unfortunately, cell b9 doesn't exist.
| | 03:37 | Let me change this to b8, and then
we'll hit Enter to go down to the next cell.
| | 03:42 | We'll change this one to b8 and hit
Enter. We'll change this one to b8 and
| | 03:48 | finally we'll get the last one.
| | 03:51 | Now each of these guys are supposed
to represent a percentage. Let's make a
| | 03:54 | change to our formatting. I'm going
to hit Escape to deselect my table.
| | 03:58 | I'll hit Escape again and I'll click right
here and I'll drag down and release to
| | 04:02 | select these cells. We'll come up to
Data Format. Now you would think I could
| | 04:06 | set these to Percentage, but unfortunately,
that doesn't work because these are fields.
| | 04:10 | Let's go back to the flyout and we'll
come down and select Custom Table Cell
| | 04:15 | Format. I'm going to change the
Precision to two decimal spaces and then we'll
| | 04:19 | come down and click Additional Format
again. Notice I have got an option here
| | 04:23 | called Conversion factor. To convert a
decimal to a percentage, we just have to
| | 04:27 | multiply it by 100. So, I'm going to
type 100 in this field and then I'm going
| | 04:31 | to come down and click in the Suffix
area and set this to %. When I'm finished,
| | 04:36 | I'll come down and click OK and we'll click OK.
| | 04:38 | The last thing I would like to do is
add up my percentages. So, I'm going to
| | 04:42 | click once in this cell and I'm going
to come up and click my Formula button,
| | 04:46 | we'll select Sum. I'll then click in
this cell. I'll come down and click in
| | 04:50 | this cell to select the names. I'll
hit Enter and then we can click once in
| | 04:54 | this cell and we can change its format.
| | 04:56 | Let me click the flyout, we'll go to
Custom Table Format. I'm going to set my
| | 05:00 | Precision to the even integer, since
this should be an even 100%. Then I'll go
| | 05:05 | to Additional Format. We'll set our
Conversion factor and our Suffix. When I'm
| | 05:11 | finished, I'll click OK, OK and
I'll hit Escape to deselect my table.
| | 05:16 | The best thing about this table is
that the majority of the data is fully
| | 05:19 | automated. That means if I make a
change to my subdivision, for instance,
| | 05:23 | we'll change this number, notice all
of the other data in the table updates
| | 05:27 | automatically.
| | 05:28 | Formulas are probably the most
powerful feature of our table objects.
| | 05:31 | In addition to automating much of our work,
they also ensure the accuracy of our data.
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| Breaking tables into multiple parts| 00:00 | Sometimes your tables can contain so
much data that they don't fit well within
| | 00:04 | your title block. In cases like these,
it's nice to know that AutoCAD allows us
| | 00:08 | to break our tables into multiple columns.
| | 00:10 | On my screen I have got an example of
a title block. This is an 11x17 inch
| | 00:15 | layout and on this layout I have
created a table. This table represents the
| | 00:20 | data from a tree survey. Let's zoom
in a little bit and we'll take a look.
| | 00:24 | If we look at the data, we can see a
column of tag numbers. Each tree has its own
| | 00:28 | specific number. If we move to the
right we can see the tree's scientific name
| | 00:33 | as well as its common name, and
finally I have also got data that represents
| | 00:37 | the condition of the tree. The
higher the number, the better the quality.
| | 00:41 | Now I'm going to do a Zoom Extents.
Here is my problem. My table has become too
| | 00:45 | large to fit within my title block.
I'm going to fix this by breaking the
| | 00:49 | table. Let me back up just a little
bit and then I'll select the table by
| | 00:53 | clicking the edge and look right down
here at the bottom. I have got a light
| | 00:56 | blue triangle in the middle of my table.
| | 00:58 | I am going to click this and as I
move up, notice what AutoCAD is doing.
| | 01:03 | It's creating a second column for my table.
Now I'm going to push this up until it
| | 01:07 | fits nicely in my title block and then
I'll click to set the new height. Then
| | 01:11 | I'm going to hit Escape to deselect
and then we'll zoom in a little bit.
| | 01:16 | Notice that AutoCAD allowed me to take
a table that was very tall and split it
| | 01:19 | into two columns. Now we don't have
to stop at two. If I was to click this
| | 01:24 | table again and then grab this grip, I
can push this up and I could create a
| | 01:28 | third column if I like. I don't want
to go that far. Let me pull this back
| | 01:32 | down, and I'll click again, and once
again we'll hit Escape to deselect.
| | 01:36 | Now I know what you are thinking.
Let me zoom in on this a little bit.
| | 01:39 | You're probably telling yourself, man,
it would be nice if we could put the same title
| | 01:43 | and header information on this new
column. Watch this. I'm going to select my
| | 01:47 | table again and I'm going to come
over to my Property changer and then I'm
| | 01:51 | going to grab my slider and we'll pull down.
| | 01:53 | Notice in the Table Breaks area
I can see that my breaking is enabled.
| | 01:58 | If I wanted to swap this back to a single
column, I can always click that flyout and
| | 02:01 | select No. Let's leave this broken.
I'm going to come down to the Repeat top
| | 02:06 | labels field and click and I'm going
to set this to Yes. Let me move outside
| | 02:10 | the palette, I'm going to hit Escape.
Notice that I can now see my title as
| | 02:14 | well as my headers on the second column.
| | 02:16 | I am going to zoom out a little bit.
We'll push this over to the side.
| | 02:21 | Let's look at some of the other things we
can do with the Property changer. I'm going
| | 02:23 | to select my table again, we'll open
up the palette, drag this slider to the
| | 02:29 | bottom. If I come all the way down here,
I can adjust my spacing. This is the
| | 02:34 | distance between the columns. Let's set
this to 0.75, and if I hit Tab, notice
| | 02:40 | my column shifts over. Probably my
favorite setting is the Manual position setting.
| | 02:46 | Let me click in this field, we'll grab
the flyout and we'll set this to Yes.
| | 02:51 | Since I have set this for Manual
positions, I can come up and click this grip
| | 02:55 | and I can place this column anyplace
else in the title block I like. I have
| | 02:59 | full control over its location.
At any time if I would like to put him back
| | 03:03 | where he was, I can come back to the
Property changer and I can change Manual
| | 03:07 | positions back to No.
| | 03:09 | When it comes to AutoCAD tables, size
truly doesn't matter. If your tables
| | 03:14 | start to get too big, simply break them
into smaller, more manageable columns.
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| Defining table styles| 00:00 | We have styles to control the
appearance for our text, our dimensions and our
| | 00:04 | Multileaders. Tables are no different.
The appearance of our tables is also
| | 00:09 | determined by a style. By creating a
table style, we can quickly create tables
| | 00:13 | that meet our specific needs. In this
lesson, we are going to learn how to
| | 00:17 | create a table style.
| | 00:19 | To create a table style, I'm going to
come up to the Annotation panel on my
| | 00:22 | ribbon and I'm going to click this
flyout and then I'm going to come down and
| | 00:25 | select the Table Style button. This
brings up my Table Style dialog box.
| | 00:30 | In the upper left, I can see the current
table style is called Standard. This is the
| | 00:34 | generic default table style that
exists in every AutoCAD drawing.
| | 00:39 | Just below, we can see a listing of the
table styles that exist in this current
| | 00:42 | drawing. As you can see, I have
created a couple already. If we select the
| | 00:46 | style name, we can see how that style
looks in the preview on the right.
| | 00:51 | The buttons on the right of the dialog
allow me to set a style current, create a
| | 00:55 | new style, I can modify an
existing style or I can delete a style.
| | 00:59 | Let's click the New icon. Here is
where I can give my style a name.
| | 01:03 | Now your name should be descriptive of
what the table is used for. Now in this case,
| | 01:08 | we are doing a demonstration so
I'm going to call mine demonstration.
| | 01:12 | Since our table style involves several
settings, I can then select an existing
| | 01:15 | style to start from. I'm going to click
the flyout and select Standard and I'll
| | 01:20 | click Continue. This brings up the
main editor that I can use to control the
| | 01:24 | appearance of my style.
| | 01:26 | Now we are not going to be able to go
through every single setting in this
| | 01:29 | dialog box. If you have any questions
about any of these settings, hover over
| | 01:33 | with your cursor and AutoCAD will give
you more information. For more help,
| | 01:36 | you can always come down
and click this hyperlink.
| | 01:39 | First of all, how do I want my table to
flow? If I want it to flow from the top
| | 01:42 | down or if I click the flyout, I can go
from the bottom up. I'm going to leave
| | 01:46 | this top down. If we look at the
preview, we can see we have three different
| | 01:50 | types of cell: Title, Header, and Data.
| | 01:53 | Let me come up and click the Cell
Styles flyout. Look at this. Title, Header,
| | 01:58 | and Data. I'm going to set this to
Title first. Then I can use these three tabs
| | 02:03 | to control the appearance of my Title cells.
| | 02:06 | Now the General tab controls the color
of my cell, the alignment of my text,
| | 02:10 | my formatting and my margins. I'm going
to make a quick change, I'm going to set
| | 02:15 | my fill color to be red and notice the
change in my Cell Style Preview and my
| | 02:20 | overall preview.
| | 02:21 | If I click the Text tab, I can control
the style of my text inside the cell and
| | 02:26 | if I click the Borders tab, I have a
series of settings that control the
| | 02:30 | appearance of my cell borders.
| | 02:32 | Now that I have set the appearance
of my Title cells, I'm going to make a
| | 02:35 | couple of changes to the other cell
types. Let's click the flyout and we'll
| | 02:39 | select the Header cells and then I'm
going to the Text tab and we'll change our
| | 02:43 | text type to 0.04 and I would like it
to have a rotation angle of 15 degrees
| | 02:51 | and I'm going to change its color to be green.
| | 02:53 | Then I'm going to come up and click the
flyout and we'll select the Data cells.
| | 02:57 | I'm going to select the Borders tab and
I would like my border colors to be red
| | 03:03 | and I would like to have a border on
the right and the left side of my cells.
| | 03:07 | When I'm finished with all of my Table
Style settings, I'm going to come down
| | 03:10 | and click OK and my new table style is
added to my styles list. Now this guy is
| | 03:15 | also the current style so I'm
going to come down and click Close.
| | 03:19 | Let's create a table.
| | 03:20 | Now I'm going to come up to the
Annotation panel and click the Table icon.
| | 03:24 | I'm going to accept the default column and
row settings and I'm going to come down
| | 03:28 | and click OK. I'm going to move up
and we'll drop this table right in the
| | 03:31 | middle of the screen. Let's add a
little bit of text. 'This is my title.'
| | 03:38 | Let me hit Enter and we'll enter some
text for the header. Notice because of
| | 03:43 | my formatting I can't see my text that well.
If I roll my wheel forward, this will
| | 03:47 | help just a little bit. Let me hit
Enter again and we'll fill out one data cell.
| | 03:51 | When I'm finished, I'll come up
and click the X to close the editor.
| | 03:54 | I would like to fill this table with
data, so I'm going to click and hold and
| | 03:58 | we'll drag across these cells. I want
to grab my Autofill and we'll drag this
| | 04:02 | guy to the right and click. I'll then
hit Escape and then I'll click and hold
| | 04:07 | and drag across this row and release.
Grab my Autofill again and we'll pull this down.
| | 04:12 | When I'm finished, I'll hit Escape.
| | 04:14 | Now the best thing about table styles
is that if you update your style, it will
| | 04:18 | in turn update your table. I would
like to make a change. I'm going be honest.
| | 04:22 | I don't care much for the height
of my header text so we'll adjust the style.
| | 04:26 | Let me click my Annotation flyout.
I'm going to come down and click Table
| | 04:29 | Style. We'll make sure ours is
selected and then we'll click Modify.
| | 04:34 | Now I'm going to go up to Cell Styles and
click the flyout and we'll grab Header.
| | 04:38 | I'll go to the Text tab and let's
change this height to something a little
| | 04:42 | easier to read. I'm going to type 0.15,
let's click OK and I'll click Close and
| | 04:48 | notice my table is updated automatically.
| | 04:50 | Let me zoom out a little bit and we'll
pan this over. What if I would like to
| | 04:54 | apply a completely different style to a
table? Watch this. I'm going to select
| | 04:59 | my table and I'm going to come over to
the property changer. Right down here in
| | 05:02 | the Table area I have access to my
Table Style. I want to click the flyout and
| | 05:08 | let's set this to Standard. Let's
click the flyout again. Let's set it to
| | 05:11 | Summary of Quantities.
| | 05:13 | Notice I have got the exact same data;
it's just conforming to a different style.
| | 05:17 | When I'm finished, I'll move
outside the palette and we'll let it
| | 05:20 | collapse and then I'll hit
Escape to deselect my table.
| | 05:23 | Table styles allow us to configure the
appearance and formatting of our table
| | 05:26 | ahead of time. Having a set of well-
defined table styles means we can quickly
| | 05:30 | create a table that suits our needs.
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| Importing tables from Microsoft Excel| 00:00 | Frequently in an office environment,
members of a design team may create
| | 00:04 | tables using Microsoft Excel. At some
point, these tables may need to show up
| | 00:09 | in our AutoCAD drawings. In this lesson,
we are going to look at how to convert
| | 00:12 | an Excel table into an AutoCAD table.
| | 00:14 | Now on my screen, I have got a title
block. This guy represents a single sheet
| | 00:19 | in a site restoration project. This is
going to be the drawing I'm going to use
| | 00:23 | for my planting list. A planting list
is an itemized list of all of the trees
| | 00:28 | and shrubs that will be purchased
for our site restoration. My landscape
| | 00:32 | architect has emailed a planting list
to me and it happens to be in Microsoft
| | 00:36 | Excel format. Now I have a version of
Excel open. Let's take a look at the table.
| | 00:41 | Our goal is to move this table in the
AutoCAD. Now I have done a little bit of
| | 00:45 | preparation ahead of time.
Let me show you what I have done.
| | 00:47 | I am going to jump back over to AutoCAD.
I have already created a table style
| | 00:52 | for my planting list. I'm going to
come up and click the Annotation panel and
| | 00:56 | we can see the Style right down here,
this guy is current. This style contains
| | 01:00 | the standard settings I would use for a
typical planting list and I'm going to
| | 01:05 | move this table using my Windows clipboard.
| | 01:08 | To do that, I'll click right up here
and hold and we'll drag down and select
| | 01:12 | all of these cells and then I'll right-
click and select Copy. I'm going to jump
| | 01:16 | back over to AutoCAD and here's
where I'm going to paste my data.
| | 01:19 | Now you might think that I would right-
click and select Paste from the menu but
| | 01:24 | unfortunately the paste option I need
is Paste Special and this option doesn't
| | 01:28 | exist in the right-click menu. Let's
hit Escape, instead, I'm going to paste my
| | 01:33 | data using the Menu Browser. I'm
going to come up and click the icon.
| | 01:36 | We'll select Edit and we'll come over
and down and select Paste Special.
| | 01:40 | Now how do I want to paste to this.
I'm going to select AutoCAD Entities.
| | 01:45 | This way the data will assume the
properties of the current table style. When I'm
| | 01:50 | finished, I'll come over and click OK
and then I'll place my table on my Title
| | 01:53 | block and let's zoom in and take a look.
| | 01:56 | Now I wish I could see the conversion
was always perfect. Unfortunately, it's
| | 02:00 | not. You will have to do some clean up
after the paste. For instance, notice my
| | 02:05 | quantities have all switched to the
four decimal spaces. Now we can fix this
| | 02:09 | with formatting. I'm going to click
and hold right here and I'll drag down
| | 02:13 | across these cells, we'll release.
Let's come up and click the Data format
| | 02:17 | flyout, we'll select Custom and then
I'll change my precision to the even
| | 02:22 | integer. Then we'll click OK.
| | 02:24 | When I'm finished, I'll hit Escape a
couple of times to deselect my table.
| | 02:29 | To fix these remaining cells, we can
always use the match properties. I'm going to
| | 02:33 | click once inside this cell, we'll
come up and click the Match Cell tool and
| | 02:39 | then I'll click inside this one and
this one, this one, this one and this one,
| | 02:43 | and when I'm finished I'll right-click.
| | 02:44 | Let me pan this over a little bit.
Now if you have to do any significant
| | 02:49 | formatting, you can always do that
with your Property Changer. Watch this.
| | 02:52 | I'm going to click and hold, I'm going to
drag down, I'm going select all of these
| | 02:56 | cells, then I'll come over to my
Property Changer and if I have to I can use
| | 03:01 | these settings to adjust any
weirdness that may come over from Excel.
| | 03:04 | I am going to fix the text height. Let's
come down to this field, we'll click and
| | 03:08 | I'm going to set all of my text heights
to 0.1. Let's hit Tab. Notice all my text
| | 03:13 | is corrected.
| | 03:14 | At this point, we could make
corrections to our margins, our alignments,
| | 03:18 | our cell widths and heights or many other
settings. Let's move outside the palette
| | 03:22 | and we'll let it collapse and then
I'm going to hit Escape to deselect my table.
| | 03:26 | By allowing us to import our Excel
tables in the AutoCAD, we can leverage our
| | 03:30 | existing Microsoft Excel data and
eliminate the duplication of our work.
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|
|
4. Dimension ToolsDimensioning with the spacebar| 00:01 | Believe it or not, you don't always
have to select object snaps when creating
| | 00:04 | dimensions. AutoCAD doesn't mind if you
simply click once to select the entire
| | 00:08 | entity. In fact, this method could be
one of the fastest ways to dimension your parts.
| | 00:12 | On my screen, I have got a mechanical
example and we are going to use this
| | 00:16 | drawing to learn a really fast way to
create dimensions. I have already created
| | 00:20 | the dimension style and I'm
practicing good form. If we click the Layer
| | 00:24 | control, we can see I had a layer
for my dimensions and that layer is current.
| | 00:28 | Let's create a linear dimension.
I'm going to come up and click the tool.
| | 00:32 | Now take a look at what AutoCAD is
asking for. It says Specify extension line
| | 00:37 | origin or select object. If I right-
click, I can select this line and drag out
| | 00:43 | a dimension.
| | 00:45 | Now I'm going to create another
dimension, but this time I'm going to do it
| | 00:47 | a different way. I'm going to hit my
spacebar. That will take me right back in
| | 00:51 | the previous command and then I'm
going to hit my spacebar again and this is
| | 00:55 | the equivalent of doing a right-click.
So I can then select this line and drag
| | 00:59 | a dimension over here.
| | 01:01 | Now as fast as I can hit my spacebar,
one, two, I can click this line and
| | 01:05 | create a dimension. One, two, we are
going to add a dimension over here.
| | 01:09 | One, two, we'll draw one up here.
One, two, we'll create one more down here.
| | 01:16 | Using the select objects method along
with our spacebar, we can make quick work
| | 01:20 | out of most of our general purpose dimensioning.
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| Creating rotated linear dimensions| 00:01 | Linear dimensions are typically
used to label horizontal and vertical
| | 00:04 | distances. However, if they are rotated,
they can be used just like an aligned
| | 00:08 | dimension and they are much easier to
grip at it. In this lesson, we are going
| | 00:12 | to learn how to create
rotated linear dimensions.
| | 00:14 | On my screen, I have got a
mechanical example. I have just finished this
| | 00:18 | drawing and I have started adding
some dimensions. Take a look at these
| | 00:21 | dimensions along the top. I would like
to create a similar set of dimensions
| | 00:26 | along this edge. Since this line is not
parallel to the X or Y-axis, I'm going
| | 00:32 | to use an aligned dimension.
| | 00:33 | I am going to come up to the
Annotation panel and click the Dimension flyout.
| | 00:38 | We'll select the Aligned tool. I would
like the dimension from the center of
| | 00:43 | this circle to the center of this one.
Now I have a running object snap set for
| | 00:47 | center. Let me zoom in a little bit.
Here we go, we'll click right there, and
| | 00:51 | then I'll backup and
we'll pull out our dimension.
| | 00:55 | Now here is my problem. My extension
line falls right on top of my centerline.
| | 01:00 | This would look much better if I can
select this extension, grab this grip and
| | 01:05 | move it to the end of the centerline.
Unfortunately, as I change the grip
| | 01:09 | location, I'm also skewing my dimension.
Even if I click the location I want, I
| | 01:14 | can see this dimension is not usable.
| | 01:16 | Let's see where is this guy. Let's look
at how we can do this by using a linear
| | 01:21 | dimension. I'm going to come up and
click the Dimension flyout and we'll select
| | 01:25 | the Linear tool. Once again, I'll
dimension from the center of this circle,
| | 01:29 | I'll zoom in and grab the center of
this one. Now here is the inherent problem
| | 01:34 | with Linear. It wants to give me the
horizontal or the vertical distance.
| | 01:39 | Take a look at my command line. Notice
I have got an option called Rotated.
| | 01:42 | I'm going to right-click and select
Rotated from the menu. Now I can define the
| | 01:48 | angle at which I would like to be
pulling this dimension and I can do that by
| | 01:52 | clicking two points.
| | 01:53 | I am going to click this end point
and this one. Notice that I'm pulling my
| | 01:59 | dimension parallel to that line. Here
is the best part. If I want to adjust my
| | 02:04 | extension line, I can simply select
the dimension, grab the grip and I can
| | 02:08 | place it to the end point of the line.
At this point to finish up, we can
| | 02:12 | create a continued dimension or we
could just as easily create anther rotated
| | 02:16 | linear dimension. Let's do that.
| | 02:18 | I am going to come up and launch the
tool. I want the dimension from the center
| | 02:22 | of this circle to the center of this one.
Let's right-click and select Rotated.
| | 02:29 | I would like to be pulling this at an
angle defined by this end point and this
| | 02:33 | one. I'll pull this guy out
to the end point of this arrow.
| | 02:37 | Finally, I'll click my extension lines
and we'll drag these out to the end of
| | 02:41 | the center lines. The next time you
have trouble within a line dimension,
| | 02:45 | try using the linear method. It might be
the perfect choice to create the dimension you need.
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| Adding alternate dimensions| 00:00 | When dimensioning your drawings,
it's important to remember that everyone
| | 00:04 | involved with your design may not use
the same unit of measure. You may prefer
| | 00:08 | to work in inches while our clients
may prefer to work in millimeters.
| | 00:11 | At times like these, we can
create alternate dimensions.
| | 00:14 | On my screen I have got a simple
mechanical part. This guy was set up such that
| | 00:18 | each unit equals one inch. Take a look
at our dimensions. This part is being
| | 00:23 | dimensioned via a decimal inches.
Let's say I have to plot this drawing and
| | 00:27 | I have to provide it to my client, but
my client prefers to work in millimeters.
| | 00:31 | Rather than scaling and re-
dimensioning this part, I'm going to go into my
| | 00:35 | Dimension Style and turn-
on some alternate units.
| | 00:37 | Let's go up to the Annotation panel
and click the flyout. I'm going to come
| | 00:41 | down and click my Dimension Style icon.
Now these dimensions were created using
| | 00:46 | the Lynda style. So I'll come over and
click Modify. From here, I'm going to
| | 00:50 | come down to the Alternate Units tab.
Now these are really easy to use.
| | 00:54 | There is a single check box. Do we want to
show alternate units or not? I'm going to
| | 00:58 | put a check in the box. Now I have
access to additional settings that control
| | 01:02 | the appearance on my alternate units.
| | 01:04 | First of all, how do I want to format this?
Right now, they are going to be in
| | 01:07 | a decimal format. If I click the flyout,
we can see we have additional choices.
| | 01:12 | I can also adjust their precision. Take
a look at this multiplier. Notice it's
| | 01:16 | set to 25.4. That's because AutoCAD is
assuming I want to use millimeters and
| | 01:21 | the difference between
inches and millimeters is 25.4.
| | 01:25 | Knowing this, you can create alternate
units of any type of measurement as long
| | 01:28 | as you know the conversion factor
between your current units and your alternate
| | 01:31 | units. As a courtesy, AutoCAD is also
providing a suffix of mm for millimeters.
| | 01:37 | If I look at the placement area,
I can see that my alternate dimensions are
| | 01:40 | going to be placed below the primary
value. We can also see that if we look
| | 01:44 | right up here on the preview.
| | 01:45 | I am going to come down and click OK,
and then I'm going to move this dialog
| | 01:48 | box over a little bit, and when I click
Close, watch my dimensions. Notice that
| | 01:54 | all of them now include a millimeter
equivalent and if I was to create any new
| | 01:58 | dimensions, they would also
contain the alternate measurement.
| | 02:01 | I will create an Aligned dimensions.
We'll click the flyout and select the line.
| | 02:05 | I'm going to right-click and
I'll grab this line and pull out a
| | 02:08 | dimension. Let me zoom in a little bit.
Notice I'm experiencing a little bit of a bug.
| | 02:14 | Take a look at the spacing of my text
in the new dimension as opposed to my
| | 02:17 | existing dimensions. Not to worry. If I click
this dimension one time and grab the grip,
| | 02:23 | my spacing is automatically corrected.
Let me click again to reset my dimension.
| | 02:28 | Using the alternate dimensions
feature, we eliminate the need to manually
| | 02:32 | convert our dimensions to other units.
As fast as we dimension our drawings,
| | 02:35 | AutoCAD provides us with
the alternate measurements.
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| Identifying tolerances| 00:01 | In a mechanical world, it's easy to
design a part up to three decimal spaces.
| | 00:05 | It's much more difficult to mass
produce parts of that level of precision.
| | 00:08 | When dealing with really precise measurements,
we may want to provide an acceptable
| | 00:12 | tolerance. A tolerance is the amount we
can deviate from our desired dimension,
| | 00:17 | and still have a usable part.
| | 00:18 | In this lesson, we are going to
look at how to add tolerances to our
| | 00:21 | dimensions. On my screen, I have got an
example of a mechanical drawing. If we
| | 00:25 | zoom in and look at these dimensions,
we can see that these guys are very
| | 00:28 | precise. They are to three decimal spaces.
| | 00:31 | This drawing was created such that each
unit equals one inch. So these guys are
| | 00:35 | dimensioned to the thousandth of an inch.
As I mentioned before, it's difficult
| | 00:40 | to mass produce parts of that accuracy.
I would like to add some tolerances to
| | 00:44 | this part, so the manufacturer knows
how much he can deviate from a perfect
| | 00:48 | condition and still have a usable part.
| | 00:50 | To do that, I'm going to make a change
to my dimension style. I'm going to come
| | 00:54 | up to the Annotation flyout. And I'm
going to come down and click the Dimension
| | 00:57 | Style icon. Now these dimensions were
all created using the Lynda style. So,
| | 01:01 | I'll come over and click Modify
and to identify dimension tolerances,
| | 01:06 | we are going to come down to the Tolerances tab.
| | 01:09 | If I come right over here, I can see
the Current Method is set to None.
| | 01:12 | If I click the flyout, we can see that we
have several choices. In this case, we are
| | 01:16 | going to use Deviation. Deviation
allows us to define an acceptable range of
| | 01:21 | error for our dimensions. If you have
any questions about the other tolerancing
| | 01:25 | methods, simply hit your F1 key to
bring up the Help feature and AutoCAD will
| | 01:29 | direct you to the Information you need.
| | 01:31 | Now that I have set this for Deviation,
if we look at the preview, we can see
| | 01:34 | that I have two new numbers. One is
positive, and one is negative. These
| | 01:38 | numbers define how far we can go above
or below a perfect dimension. If I look
| | 01:43 | over here, my current precision is set
to 3. I'm going to set my upper value to
| | 01:48 | .003 and I'll change my lower value to
.005, and then I'm going to accept the
| | 01:55 | default height, position,
and alignment settings.
| | 01:58 | Let's come down and click OK. Let me
move the dialog box over, and when I click
| | 02:02 | Close, watch my dimensions. Notice that
each one has a tolerance applied to it,
| | 02:09 | and these guys tell me it's acceptable
to three thousandth of an inch above or
| | 02:13 | as much as five thousandth of an
inch below my listed dimension.
| | 02:16 | Now chances are you won't be applying
a tolerance to every dimension in your
| | 02:20 | drawing. Let alone having every
dimension be the exact same tolerance. Let me
| | 02:25 | show you a different way we can do this.
I'm going to click Undo to undo the
| | 02:29 | changes to my dimension style, and
let's look at how we can use our Property
| | 02:32 | Changer to apply
tolerances to specific dimensions.
| | 02:35 | I am going to zoom in on this dimension
at the bottom. We'll pan him over just
| | 02:40 | a little bit. Let's select the
dimension, and then I'm going to bring up my
| | 02:43 | Property Changer. Now if your property
changer doesn't look exactly like mine,
| | 02:48 | it's because your headings are not all
in a collapsed state. You may have to
| | 02:52 | click some of these
triangles to collapse these guys.
| | 02:55 | Notice the headings in my Property
Changer match the tab names in our dimension
| | 02:59 | style. So I'm going to click the
tolerance's heading. Right here, I can set my
| | 03:03 | tolerance display. I'm going to click
my flyout and select Deviation, and right
| | 03:08 | here I can set my upper and lower limits.
Now be careful, because they actually
| | 03:12 | list upper beneath lower.
| | 03:14 | Let's set our lower limit to .005,
and we'll set our upper limit to .007.
| | 03:23 | Then we can move outside the palette,
let it collapse, and I'll hit my Escape key to
| | 03:27 | deselect. Notice that I have applied
a tolerance to a specific dimension.
| | 03:31 | You can use the same procedure to apply
tolerances to your other dimensions.
| | 03:35 | When dealing with very precise part
requirements, it's nice to know that
| | 03:39 | AutoCAD makes it easy to add
acceptable tolerances to our dimensions.
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| Dimensioning arcs| 00:01 | When dimensioning arcs, typically
we are shown the radial dimension.
| | 00:04 | While this is easily done in most cases,
there will be times when we'll need some
| | 00:08 | additional dimensioning tools. In
this lesson we are going to learn how to
| | 00:11 | create jogged radial dimensions and
we'll also look at how to dimension our arc length.
| | 00:16 | On my screen I have got a mechanical
example. This drawing is metric and it was
| | 00:20 | created such that each unit equals one
millimeter. I have just about finished
| | 00:24 | this drawing. I have been adding some
dimensions and I have created a layout.
| | 00:28 | Notice how all of the
dimensions fit nicely on the sheet.
| | 00:31 | I am to the point now where I would
like to dimension this large arc. This is
| | 00:35 | going to pose a slight problem.
Watch this. I'm going to double-click in
| | 00:38 | viewport and I'm going to draw a line
from the center point of this arc.
| | 00:43 | Let's launch the Line command and I have
got a running object snap set for center,
| | 00:47 | but it looks like it's going to
give me a problem. So I'm going to
| | 00:50 | Shift+Right-click and select Center
from the menu and we'll click the arc.
| | 00:55 | Notice as I move my cursor, the center
point of this arc falls way outside my
| | 01:00 | title block. That means when I create
my radial dimension, it's going to look
| | 01:03 | little unusual since the others are
pointing to center points on the page.
| | 01:07 | This one is going to be shooting
off to some unknown location.
| | 01:10 | What I'm going to do in this case is
create a jogged radial dimension. Let me
| | 01:14 | hit Escape to get out of the Line
command and I'm going to double-click on my
| | 01:17 | Desktop to get out of the viewport
and let's jump over to model space.
| | 01:21 | I'm going to come down and click my Quick
View Layouts tool. We'll select the model
| | 01:25 | space Preview and then we'll click on
screen. As long as we are here, let's
| | 01:29 | come down and click the Lineweight
toggle. I really don't need to see my
| | 01:32 | plotted line weights right now.
| | 01:34 | Now I'm going to create my jogged
radial dimension through my menu browser.
| | 01:38 | This is the only place we can do it.
There is no icon for this tool on the
| | 01:41 | ribbon. Let's come up and click the
Browser, we'll come down to the Dimension
| | 01:45 | menu and look my Jogged tool is right here.
| | 01:48 | I will then select my arc, and at this
point I can choose my alternate center
| | 01:53 | point location. I'm going to pick a
point right down here and I can move my
| | 01:57 | cursor left and right to determine the
location of the dimension. Let's click,
| | 02:01 | and then finally I can push forward
and back to determine the location of the jog.
| | 02:06 | Using the jogged radial dimension, I
was able to dimension a 450-millimeter
| | 02:11 | radius while still keeping my dimension
within the printable area of my sheet.
| | 02:15 | If we need to make edits to one of
these dimensions, we can do that with grips.
| | 02:19 | If I select this guy, notice I have a
grip that adjusts the jog and I have got
| | 02:24 | another grip that allows
me to adjust the dimension.
| | 02:28 | So these guys are very flexible and
we can use them anytime we have a large
| | 02:32 | radius. Let me pan over a little bit
and let's take a look at the back side of
| | 02:36 | my part. Notice I have got a notch
here that's been dimensioned. I would like
| | 02:40 | to create a dimension such that we can
find the location of this notch and I'm
| | 02:44 | going to do that by
dimensioning this arc length.
| | 02:46 | To dimension an arc length we can use
the Standard Dimension flyout. Let's open
| | 02:50 | this up and we'll come down and select
Arc Length. I can then select my arc and
| | 02:55 | pull out my dimension. Let's do one
more. I'm going to pan this down just a
| | 02:58 | little bit and let's dimension this arc.
| | 03:01 | Once again, we'll launch the tool.
I'll click the arc and notice I'm
| | 03:04 | dimensioning the entire arc length.
Maybe I don't want the entire arc length.
| | 03:10 | Maybe I only want the distance from
the endpoint over here to the point of
| | 03:13 | tangency right here.
| | 03:14 | If that's the case, I'm going to right-
click and select Partial and then I'll
| | 03:20 | click the endpoint here to the
endpoint here and AutoCAD is allowing me to
| | 03:25 | dimension only that portion of the arc.
Now that I'm finished, I'm going to
| | 03:29 | come down and turn back on my
Lineweights and let's return to our layout.
| | 03:32 | I'm going to right-click on my Quick View
Layouts tool and we'll select Activate
| | 03:36 | Previous Layout.
| | 03:38 | In most cases, dimensioning an arc is a
pretty straightforward process. For the
| | 03:42 | times when our arc dimensions
require special formatting, AutoCAD has
| | 03:46 | additional tools to help us get the job done.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Breaking dimensions| 00:00 | One of the first rules of dimensioning
is to avoid crossing dimension lines.
| | 00:04 | That's because intersecting dimensions
can be difficult to read and can create
| | 00:08 | confusion. Sometimes though, it's
impossible to annotate a drawing without
| | 00:12 | crossing over a dimension. In this
lesson, we are going to learn how to make
| | 00:15 | our crossing dimensions easier to
read by creating dimension breaks.
| | 00:19 | On my screen I have got a mechanical
example. This drawing contains several
| | 00:22 | dimensions. So many, in fact, that the
dimensions are starting to cross over
| | 00:26 | each other in some places. I'm going
to zoom in up here and we can see an
| | 00:30 | example of a crossing dimension. Let's
make these dimensions a little easier to
| | 00:34 | read by creating a dimension break.
| | 00:37 | To do that, I'm going to click the
Annotate tab on my ribbon and right here in
| | 00:40 | the Dimensions panel, I'm going to
click the Break icon. Now this command is
| | 00:45 | very easy to use. Generally speaking,
I click the dimension I would like to
| | 00:48 | break and then I immediately click the
object I would like to use to break it.
| | 00:52 | When I'm finished, I'll right-click.
| | 00:54 | I am going to back up a little bit.
We'll pan over and we'll take a look at
| | 00:57 | another example right here. In this
case, I have got a Multileader that's
| | 01:01 | crossing over my dimension. No problem,
we'll come up and click the Break icon.
| | 01:04 | I would like to break this dimension
with this Multileader and I'll right-click.
| | 01:09 | Now the nicest thing about dimension
breaks is that they are dynamic. Watch this.
| | 01:13 | If I click my Multileader and grab this grip,
and you know what? I'm going to turn off my
| | 01:17 | running object snaps for a second. Here
we go. Let's drop the Multileader right
| | 01:21 | here and notice how the
break goes along for the ride.
| | 01:24 | We can put this guy wherever we want
and the break will always be in the right
| | 01:29 | place. Let's hit Escape because I would
like to take a look at another example.
| | 01:33 | Let me back up. We'll zoom in on this
Multileader. Now this Leader crosses a
| | 01:37 | lot of geometry in addition to a
dimension. I'm showing you this because
| | 01:41 | Multileaders can also be broken.
| | 01:43 | Let's launch the tool. I'll select my
Multileader to break and then I'll click
| | 01:48 | the object I would like to use to
break it. Notice I'm still in the command.
| | 01:51 | That means I can click additional objects.
I can select this one, this one and this one.
| | 01:57 | We can use standard AutoCAD entities
to break our dimensions in Multileaders.
| | 02:01 | Let me right-click. Now having this
many breaks is excessive. Let me show you
| | 02:06 | how we can remove the breaks
from our dimensions in Multileaders.
| | 02:09 | To do that, I'm going to launch the
tool. I'll then select my Multileader and
| | 02:13 | then I'm going to right-click and
select Remove and this clears all of the
| | 02:17 | breaks from this object. In some rare
cases, you may want to get a break that's
| | 02:22 | larger than the break that we get by
default. Let me show you how we can do that.
| | 02:26 | I want to select the Break tool. Let's
break this dimension and this time I'm
| | 02:31 | going to right-click and select Manual.
This lets me determine the size of the break.
| | 02:36 | I'll click right
here and I'll click right here.
| | 02:40 | Now the only drawback to a Manual
break is that it's not dynamic. Since it's
| | 02:45 | not based on an object, it's not going
to update if this call-out moves. Let me
| | 02:50 | hit Escape and we'll put this
dimension back the way it was. Once again
| | 02:53 | I'll launch the tool. I'll select the
dimension and I'll right-click. We'll select
| | 02:58 | Remove to clear the break.
| | 02:59 | When the time comes that you simply
can't avoid crossing over a dimension line,
| | 03:03 | your next best option is to add a
dimension break. Well-placed dimension breaks
| | 03:07 | can make it easier to
read overlapping dimensions.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Inserting a jog line| 00:00 | Sometimes you may need to dimension to
a point that falls outside the boundary
| | 00:04 | of your paper. This happens
frequently with large drawings like property
| | 00:08 | surveys. In cases like these, we
can add a jog line to our dimension to
| | 00:13 | identify that our dimension isn't being
shown at true size. On my screen I have
| | 00:17 | got an example of a simple plative
survey. Generally speaking, this drawing
| | 00:21 | describes the dimensions of a piece of
property. I'm going to zoom in a little bit.
| | 00:25 | If we look at these heavy lines,
these guys represent the boundary of my
| | 00:29 | property and you can see that I have
already added some dimensions to the
| | 00:33 | property lines.
| | 00:34 | At this point, I need to add one more
dimension. I need the dimension from this
| | 00:38 | property corner North all the way up to
my section corner. A section corner is
| | 00:44 | a property corner that's recognized by
the state. Let's jump into model space
| | 00:48 | and take a look at our geometry.
| | 00:49 | I am going to come down and right-click
on my Quick View Layouts tool and we'll
| | 00:53 | select Activate Model tab. I don't need
my Lineweights right now so we'll click
| | 00:58 | the toggle and turn those off. If we
look right up here, this guy represents
| | 01:03 | our section corner. I need to create a
dimension to this corner such that we
| | 01:07 | can legally reference the
location of our property.
| | 01:10 | Now here is my problem. My section
corner is so far away from my property that
| | 01:14 | it doesn't show up on my layout.
It's hard to dimension to something that
| | 01:18 | doesn't appear on the plot. So I'm
going to dimension this distance using a
| | 01:22 | broken dimension.
| | 01:23 | The first thing I'm going to do is
get this section corner to show up on my
| | 01:26 | paper. I'm going to launch my Copy
command and I'm going to copy this symbol
| | 01:31 | and right-click. Let's turn on my
running object snaps, I'm going to zoom in
| | 01:35 | and we'll pick him up from the
center here and then I'll back up.
| | 01:39 | We are going to place him to a point.
Shift+Right-click to bring up the menu
| | 01:44 | and we'll select Nearest and we'll
click right about here. When I'm finished
| | 01:49 | I'll hit Escape to get out of the
command. Let's take a look at our layout and
| | 01:52 | see how we did.
| | 01:53 | I am going to come down and right-click
on my Quick View Layouts tool and we'll
| | 01:57 | select Activate Previous Layout. As you
can see my section corner does show up
| | 02:01 | on the page now. We are going to
create our dimension to this corner.
| | 02:05 | Let's go back to model space and I'm
going to create an aligned dimension, so
| | 02:09 | I'll click the flyout and we'll
select Aligned. I would like to create a
| | 02:13 | dimension from the center of this symbol,
the endpoint of my property line, and
| | 02:18 | I'll pull this out to here.
| | 02:19 | Let's zoom in a little bit. Now the
actual distance to this property corner is
| | 02:23 | 212.6 feet. Let's change this
dimension to read the actual distance. To do
| | 02:29 | that, I'm going to select the dimension.
We'll bring up our Property changer.
| | 02:33 | I'm going to come down and open up the
Text heading and we are going to go all
| | 02:36 | the way to the bottom in the Text
override area and we'll click type 212.60',
| | 02:47 | Enter, and then I'll hit Escape to deselect.
| | 02:49 | At this point I'm going add a jog
line to my dimension such that anybody
| | 02:53 | reading these plans will understand
that this distance is not being represented
| | 02:57 | at its true length. To add my jog
line, I'm going to come up and click my
| | 03:01 | Dimension flyout.
| | 03:02 | I am going to come right down here and
select Jog Line and then I'll come over
| | 03:06 | and click my dimension. Now in this case,
I don't want my running object snaps
| | 03:10 | messing me up, let me come down and turn
these off. I'm going to set my jog right here.
| | 03:16 | At any point if we would like to
remove this jog line, we can use the same
| | 03:20 | tool. Let me come up and launch the
tool again. In this case, I'm going to
| | 03:24 | right-click and select Remove and
click this dimension. Now I would like to
| | 03:29 | keep my jog line, so I'm going to
come up and click Undo. Let's turn our
| | 03:33 | Lineweights back on and
we'll head back to our layout.
| | 03:37 | Jog lines allow us to dimension to
points that fall outside the boundary of
| | 03:41 | our sheet and they are extremely easy
to use. Adding or removing a jog line can
| | 03:46 | be done with a single click.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating ordinate dimensions| 00:01 | When dimensioning a drawing, we
typically show linear, angular and radial
| | 00:04 | dimensions. Did you know that it's
also possible to dimension the X and Y
| | 00:08 | co-ordinates of our geometry? In this
lesson we are going to look at how to
| | 00:11 | create ordinate dimensions.
| | 00:13 | On my screen I have got a very simple
mechanical part. Let's take a look at our
| | 00:17 | first ordinate dimension. I'm going
to come up to the Dimensions flyout and
| | 00:21 | click, and we'll come all the way down
to the bottom and select Ordinate. Now I
| | 00:25 | like my dimension to be accurate, so
I'm going to come down and turn on my
| | 00:28 | running object snaps. As long as I'm
here, notice that my Ortho and my dynamic
| | 00:33 | input are also turned on, and when I
pull down, notice the value that I see
| | 00:37 | represents the X coordinate of this end
point. If I pull to the left, I can see
| | 00:42 | the Y coordinate. Now you may be
wondering how is this dimension helpful? Well,
| | 00:46 | I can tell you in this case, it's not.
Let me erase this and I would like to
| | 00:52 | move this part such that its end point
right here falls at the origin, or has a
| | 00:57 | coordinate of 0,0.
| | 01:00 | To do that, I'm going to launch the
Move command. We'll select our part and
| | 01:03 | right- click. I'm going to pick it
from the end point here, and since my
| | 01:08 | dynamic end put is turned on, if I
want to enter a coordinate, I'm going to
| | 01:13 | type the pound symbol, 0, 0, and I'll
hit Enter. And now my part is located at
| | 01:20 | the origin. Let me pan this up a
little bit. Since my parts are located here,
| | 01:25 | these dimensions will now make more sets.
| | 01:28 | Once again I'm going to come up and
launch the tool, I'll click this end point
| | 01:31 | and pull down. I'm going to hit the
spacebar to go right back into the command,
| | 01:36 | and we'll grab the center of this
circle and pull down. I'll hit the spacebar
| | 01:40 | again, and we'll grab
this end point and pull down.
| | 01:43 | Let's label a couple of Y coordinates.
I'm going to hit my spacebar, and we'll
| | 01:47 | grab this end point and pull to the
left, we'll label the center of this
| | 01:51 | circle, and we'll label the center of
this circle, and I missed, hold on, let
| | 01:57 | me hit Escape, and we'll do that guy again.
| | 02:00 | I am going to zoom in a little bit
closer to guarantee my center point, there
| | 02:05 | we go, and I'll pull this guy out.
Using the same technique, I can dimension my
| | 02:10 | entire part, and each feature would be
dimensioned relative to this bottom left
| | 02:15 | corner. Generally speaking, ordinate
dimensions are primarily used in the
| | 02:19 | mechanical world. However, if we think
outside the box, this tool can be very
| | 02:24 | helpful in an
architectural or civil environment.
| | 02:27 | Let me give you an example. I'm going
to zoom out. We'll pan over a little bit.
| | 02:32 | On my screen I have got an elevation
view of a pedestrian bridge. Now this
| | 02:37 | bridge passes over water, and the
elevation of the water is 721.35. Frequently
| | 02:43 | in an elevation view, we'll have to
add additional elevation labels. This job
| | 02:48 | can be made very easy if
we use ordinate dimensions.
| | 02:52 | Think about this for a minute. What
if I was to launch the Move command and
| | 02:56 | select this geometry and right-click,
and what if I was to pick it up from this
| | 03:01 | end point and move it to the coordinate
pound symbol here, we'll type 0,721.35,
| | 03:10 | and I'll hit Enter. Let's do a Zoom
Extents. Our geometry is way up here.
| | 03:15 | Let's zoom in. I just placed this drawing
such that my water level is at Y coordinate
| | 03:21 | of 721.35. Let's label some of the
other elevations in this drawing. I'm going
| | 03:26 | to zoom in a little bit, and this
drawing is bigger than my mechanical part. So
| | 03:31 | I'm going to come down and change my
annotations scale to 1.5. Let's launch the
| | 03:36 | ordinate command and let's find the
elevation of this concrete to button it.
| | 03:40 | I'll click this end point, and I'll
pull this out. Let's find the elevation of
| | 03:45 | the railing. Once again, I'll hit my
spacebar to go into the command, I'll grab
| | 03:49 | the end point, and I'll pull it out.
| | 03:51 | Provided my elevation view is drawn
accurately, finding these elevations is
| | 03:55 | easy. Even though ordinate
dimensioning is normally used for mechanical
| | 03:58 | drafting, architects or civil engineers
may also find it useful for finding and
| | 04:03 | labeling elevations.
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5. FieldsCreating smart labels| 00:00 | All AutoCAD text objects are not alike.
In addition to the standard text that
| | 00:05 | we typically use, we can also create
dynamic text that updates itself when our
| | 00:09 | drawing changes. In this lesson we
are going to learn how to create smart
| | 00:12 | labels using fields.
| | 00:14 | On my screen I have got a simple
rectangle and I have got some text.
| | 00:18 | Notice that some of my text has a gray
background. These text strings are called
| | 00:22 | fields and a field is a label that's
dynamically linked to something in our drawing.
| | 00:28 | So if this drawing changes, these
labels will also change. For instance,
| | 00:33 | I'm going to select this rectangle and
I'm going to come up to my Color property
| | 00:37 | and I'm going to force this guy to be blue.
| | 00:39 | Let me hit Escape. Now unfortunately,
my label doesn't instantly change.
| | 00:43 | It's going to require me to do a Regen.
I'm going to come up to my Menu Browser and click.
| | 00:48 | We'll come down and select View
and we'll come over and select Regen.
| | 00:52 | When I do, notice my label updates.
| | 00:55 | Let's make another change. I'm going
to select this geometry and we'll put it
| | 00:59 | on a different layer. I'm going
to put it on layer sketchlines and
| | 01:03 | I'll hit Escape. Let's regenerate the drawing.
To do that, I'm going to right-click
| | 01:07 | and select Repeat REGEN and
once again my label updates.
| | 01:12 | Now these guys are labeling general
properties. This guy is labeling the area.
| | 01:16 | I'm going to click the object and
we'll grab this grip and we'll pull it down
| | 01:20 | to here. I'll hit Escape, let's right-
click and select Repeat REGEN and notice
| | 01:26 | that my area updates.
| | 01:27 | Now you may be wondering if these
gray backgrounds plot. No, they don't.
| | 01:31 | The backgrounds are only visible on your
monitor and its sole purpose is to let
| | 01:35 | you know where your fields are located.
Let's talk about how we can create fields.
| | 01:40 | To do that, I'm going to zoom out and
we'll pan over because I have got another
| | 01:43 | shape in this drawing. Let's see if we
can recreate the labels that we saw on
| | 01:47 | the other shape. Before we start, let
me mention that a field is nothing more
| | 01:51 | than a piece of text. So, we can
create fields anytime we are creating text.
| | 01:56 | I am going to launch my Multileader
command and I'm going to create a Leader
| | 02:00 | from the Shift+Right-click midpoint of
this side. Let me pull this guy out and
| | 02:05 | click and I'm going to type. Let me
grab my slider so I get some Word Wrap and
| | 02:11 | we'll continue. color property of.
Now at this point I don't want to type the
| | 02:15 | color property. Instead I'm going to
right-click at my cursor and select Insert Field.
| | 02:22 | This brings up a dialog box where I can
create my field. Now there are a lot of
| | 02:25 | fields that we can choose from. These
are all of the things that I can apply a
| | 02:29 | dynamic label to in my drawing. To make
this list a little less unwieldy, I can
| | 02:34 | come up and click the Category
flyout and I can sort these by category.
| | 02:38 | For instance, I'm going to select Date
& Time. At this point I can come down
| | 02:42 | and select a field. For instance, this
guy will label the current date. Once
| | 02:47 | I have selected my field, I can come over
and select the formatting that I would
| | 02:50 | like to have on that field. The type
of field you select will determine how
| | 02:54 | many formatting options you have.
| | 02:56 | In this case, I'm going to click the
Category flyout again and I'm going to
| | 02:59 | select Objects. Then I'm going to come
down and select the Object field.
| | 03:04 | This field allows me to create a label
based on one of my object properties.
| | 03:08 | I am going to come up and click the
Select Object button and we'll select this
| | 03:11 | shape and then I can choose which
property I would like to dynamically label.
| | 03:16 | In this case we would like Color. If I
look right up here I can see a preview
| | 03:20 | of how that label is going to look.
| | 03:22 | In this case I would like to use
Lowercase text, so I'll come down and click OK.
| | 03:26 | Let's keep typing. I'm going to hit
space, it's on layer, space. Let's add a
| | 03:33 | field for the layer property. Once
again I'll right-click and select Insert Field.
| | 03:37 | We are going to use the Object field.
Let me click the Select Object button
| | 03:42 | and we'll select this one. I would
like to label the layer property and
| | 03:47 | I would like that label to be Lowercase.
| | 03:50 | Let's click OK and I'll type a period
to finish my sentence and we'll close the
| | 03:54 | text editor. This text is now
dynamically linked to this object.
| | 03:58 | So if the object changes, these labels will
change. I'm going to make two quick changes.
| | 04:03 | We'll highlight this guy and we'll go
to the Properties flyout and we'll set
| | 04:06 | him to be magenta and we'll
place him on a different layer.
| | 04:11 | As soon as I'm finished I'll hit Escape
and then we'll regenerate our drawing.
| | 04:15 | I'll do that by right-clicking. I'll
come down and select Recent Input and
| | 04:18 | I'll select Regen. Let's create the Area label.
| | 04:22 | To do that, I'm going to steal the
label from the other shape. I'm going to
| | 04:25 | back up, just so we can see both of
these guys and I'm going to select Move.
| | 04:30 | I'll select this label, it's just text,
I'll right-click and I'm going to pick it up
| | 04:35 | from a point right here
and we'll place it right over here.
| | 04:39 | Then we'll zoom in.
| | 04:40 | Now the only problem I have is this
text still references the other shape.
| | 04:45 | Let me show you how we can edit a field.
To do that, I'm just going to double-click
| | 04:49 | on my text, I'll right click inside
the field and I'll select Edit Field.
| | 04:55 | This takes me right back into the dialog box.
I can see this is an object field.
| | 04:58 | Let me come up and click the Select Object
button and we'll match this area to this shape.
| | 05:04 | Now if I push this down a little bit,
we can see that there was some additional
| | 05:07 | formatting. Notice that field
references inches. Let me push this back up.
| | 05:11 | Those settings are right here under
Additional Format. If I click this, I can
| | 05:16 | add a suffix to this label. I'm going
to hit space and I'll type inches.
| | 05:21 | When I'm finished, I'll click OK and OK
and I'll close the text editor. Just like
| | 05:25 | the other labels, if this shape changes,
the area label will change as well.
| | 05:32 | Explore the possibilities that fields
can give you in your drawings. Any time
| | 05:36 | you can use a field as opposed to a
standard text object, your AutoCAD drawing
| | 05:40 | will keep itself updated with the
most current design information.
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| Automating titleblock information| 00:01 | Title blocks are a perfect place
to start experimenting with fields.
| | 00:04 | Since title blocks require a lot of text entry,
why not try and automate some of the work?
| | 00:09 | In this lesson, we are going to
learn how to incorporate some fields into
| | 00:12 | a title block.
| | 00:13 | On my screen, I have got a mechanical
example. Now we happen to be looking at
| | 00:17 | the layout for this drawing. This
layout contains a title block. I'm going to
| | 00:21 | zoom in on the text area. The text
entities that we see on the screen are the
| | 00:25 | type of thing that we have to fill
out every time we create a drawing.
| | 00:28 | Let's see if we can automate that
process by converting some of this text into
| | 00:33 | fields. I'm going to start with the
File Name. Let's zoom in on this text.
| | 00:37 | Now this guy is a standard single line
text object. It's a placeholder, really.
| | 00:42 | It's the type of thing that you would
double-click on and make it say whatever you need.
| | 00:47 | To convert this into a field, I'm
going to double-click, this highlights the
| | 00:51 | entire text string and then I'll right-
click and select Insert Field. In this case,
| | 00:57 | I'm looking for a field that's
going to label the file name. So I'm going
| | 01:00 | to come up to my category flyout and
select Document. From here, I'll come down
| | 01:05 | and select Filename. If I look right up
here, I can see a preview of how that's
| | 01:10 | going to be labeled and that's a little
bit more than what I need. I'm going to
| | 01:13 | come over and click the
radio button for Filename only.
| | 01:17 | Notice that I can also choose, if I
would like, to show the file extension.
| | 01:20 | In my case, I would like all of my text to
be Uppercase. I'll come down and click
| | 01:25 | OK. Let's hit Enter and notice that
this field now references the file name.
| | 01:31 | Also notice that I have a slight problem,
my field is creeping over the edge of
| | 01:35 | this line. Now remember, fields are
just text. So I can fix this with a
| | 01:39 | justification option. Let me pan this
over just a little bit. I'll select this
| | 01:44 | field and I'm going to come over to my
Property changer. We'll come down to the
| | 01:48 | Text area and we'll set
its justification to Fit.
| | 01:53 | Fit will give me a grip on either end
of the text and I can use these grips to
| | 01:57 | adjust the overall width of this text
string. Let me click this grip and I'm
| | 02:02 | going to lock my Ortho. I can make this
guy the exact width that I need. Now no
| | 02:08 | matter what name is used when this file
is saved, the file name will always fit
| | 02:13 | within this shape.
| | 02:14 | If you incorporate a field like this
into your template drawing or into a
| | 02:18 | layout that you are dragging from
Design Center, you will never have to fill
| | 02:21 | out your file name again. Let's pan
over. We'll zoom out a little bit. I want
| | 02:26 | to look at another one. I never
want to enter the current date again.
| | 02:31 | Let's double-click on this text. I'm going
to right-click and select Insert Field.
| | 02:37 | This time I'm going to come up and
click the category flyout and I'm going to
| | 02:39 | select Date & Time. Then I'll select
the Date field, this will give me the
| | 02:44 | current date. As far as my formatting
is concerned, I'm going to go with the
| | 02:48 | four-digit year with the slashes.
I'll come down and click OK. When I'm
| | 02:53 | finished, I'll hit Enter and then
Escape to get out of the text editor.
| | 02:57 | From now on, this file will always
show the current date. Let's look at one
| | 03:01 | more, I'm going to back up and we'll
pan over here a little bit. Right here we
| | 03:05 | have an area that's reserved for the
initials of the drafter. Now there is no
| | 03:09 | field for drafter initials, but there
is some text associated with this drawing
| | 03:13 | that I can harvest to get these
initials. Take a look at this. I'm going to
| | 03:17 | come up and click the menu browser and
I'm going to go to the File menu. Then
| | 03:22 | we'll come over and grab the slider,
and come all the way to the bottom and
| | 03:25 | select Drawing Properties.
| | 03:27 | If I click the Summary tab, I can see
several properties that are associated
| | 03:31 | with this file. We can harvest any
of these properties using a field.
| | 03:35 | For instance, since I'm the drafter,
I'm going to click in the Author area and
| | 03:39 | I'm going to type my initials. Notice
the options we have. Title, Subject, Author,
| | 03:44 | Keywords. Let's click OK. Let's double-
click on this text. Then I'm going to
| | 03:49 | right-click and select Insert Field.
Then I'm going to go up to the Field
| | 03:53 | category flyout and we'll select Document.
| | 03:56 | Notice some of the choices. Title,
Subject, Keywords, Author. I'm going to
| | 04:01 | select the Author field and in
this case, I would like my label to be
| | 04:05 | Uppercase. When I'm finished, I'll come
down and click OK. Now we can hit Enter
| | 04:10 | and then Escape to get out of the text editor.
| | 04:12 | If all of my layouts use this field
and this field is tied to my drawing
| | 04:16 | properties, I can update all of my
layouts by simply editing the value in my
| | 04:20 | Drawing Properties. Every field that
you incorporate into a drawing is one less
| | 04:24 | label that you have to change later.
Fields are text objects that can quite
| | 04:28 | literally take care of themselves.
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| Creating labels to identify drawing updates| 00:00 | There are at least two fields that I
put on every AutoCAD layout. One is the
| | 00:04 | SaveDate and the other is a user login
name. This way I can look at the plot
| | 00:09 | and know when the file was last updated
and who was responsible for making the
| | 00:13 | changes. This information can be very
helpful later if there are questions
| | 00:17 | about the plotted drawing.
| | 00:18 | On my screen I have got a mechanical
example. I'm using this drawing because it
| | 00:22 | has a layout with a title block. We
are going to use this layout to create a
| | 00:26 | field that will give us specific
information about when this file was updated.
| | 00:30 | Let's zoom in on the lower left hand
corner. The field I'm going to be creating
| | 00:34 | is more or less a footnote. It's
going to be some small text along the edge
| | 00:38 | of my title block.
| | 00:39 | Now I have already chosen a layer
for my field. I have set my text style
| | 00:43 | current. So I'm going to create my
field using multiline text. Let me come up
| | 00:48 | and launch the tool. I'm going to
click to set my first corner. I would like
| | 00:52 | this text to read vertically along the
edge of my title block. So I'm going to
| | 00:55 | right-click and select Rotation.
I'm going to type 90 and hit Enter.
| | 01:01 | Then I'll pull up and I click to define my column width.
| | 01:04 | All right, let's start typing. I'm
going to type File Last Updated: and then
| | 01:12 | I'm going to right-click and select
Insert Field. The field I would like is in
| | 01:16 | the Data & Time category. Let's
select the SaveDate field. I would like my
| | 01:22 | label to be very specific. So I'm going
to come down and select the format with
| | 01:26 | the full date and time all the way
down to the second. Let's click OK.
| | 01:31 | I am going to hit a few spaces and
I'll type By: and let's add a login name.
| | 01:39 | Once again, I'll right-click and select
Insert Field. In this case I'm going to
| | 01:42 | click the flyout and select the
Document category. I'll select LastSavedBy. Now,
| | 01:49 | uppercase text is fine. I'm going to
come down and click OK. When I'm finished
| | 01:53 | I'm going to come up and click
the X to close the text editor.
| | 01:55 | Let me back up a little bit. Now since
I chose to create my labels as MTEXT,
| | 02:01 | I can have this footnote appear as a two-
line label or I can click this and grab
| | 02:06 | the grips and I can stretch
this out to a single line.
| | 02:09 | The important thing being that my plots
will not only have all of my important
| | 02:13 | project information, but they'll also
have a nice note along the left edge
| | 02:17 | telling me when this file was
updated and who made the changes.
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ConclusionGoodbye| 00:00 | Well, we have reached the end of the
title. Let me say that it has been my
| | 00:03 | privilege to be able to work with you
for the past few hours. Now it is your
| | 00:06 | turn to go out and use these new tools
to take your AutoCAD to the next level.
| | 00:10 | Good Luck!
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