Michael’s Corner

Michael's Corner is a monthly publication written by Michael E. Beall, Autodesk Authorized Author and peripatetic AutoCAD trainer. Michael travels all over the USA, bringing his fantastic experience and great understanding of AutoCAD to his clients. Michael's Corner brings together many of the tips, tricks and methods developed during these training sessions for the benefit of all users.

Michael's Corner provides something for every AutoCAD user. Every month, a number of articles cover a wide range of topics, suitable for users at all levels, including "The Basics" for those just starting out. Essentially, the aim of Michael's Corner is to help all AutoCAD users work smarter and faster.

This month…

From the Vault

Originally published August 2005

DesignCenter - Part III (Layout Fundamentals)

One of the most powerful features of the DesignCenter is the ability to access named objects (Layer, Dimension Styles, Text Styles, etc.) from any drawing (see The Basics in June 2005). Among that collection of drawing features in DesignCenter are the Layouts of a drawing.

So consider this: Rather than putting all of the title blocks on their respective layouts and including those in your template (.DWT; see February 2004), how about having a separate drawing that contains only layouts. That way you access DesignCenter for the layouts as you need them.

Before I can show you the benefits of accessing Layouts from DesignCenter, I need to give you the fundamentals of creating a layout; something I should have done months ago. There are four essentials to configuring a layout: The device to which you will be plotting (a printer or plotter or in the case of the following example, a DWF driver), the paper size, a plot style table (usually monochrome or color) and the name you want to assign to the layout tab for easy recognition.

These fundamental elements are found in the same place for A2000-A2004. In A2005 & A2006, they re-arranged the "furniture" and shuffled their position, but the elements remain the same. Even for LT.

Instructions to Configure the Fundamental Elements of a Layout

1. Open AutoCAD and click Use a Template and select the acad.dwt template. If AutoCAD is already open, click FileNew and select acad.dwt from the list.
2. At the bottom of the drawing area are three tabs; Model, Layout1 and Layout2. Click on Layout1.

A2000-A2004: Depending on your current settings in Options, you may get the Page Setup dialog box. If you do, go to step 4 below. If you don't go to step 3 below.

A2005-A2006: Depending on your current settings in Options, you may get the Page Setup Manager dialog box. If you do, click Modify to go to the Page Setup dialog box. If you don't go to step 3 below.

3. If your layout just appears with a rectangle in the middle of it (that's the viewport), right-click on the tab and click Page Setup or Page Setup Manager (depending on your version).

A2005-A2006: Click Modify to go to the Page Setup dialog box.

4. A2000-A2004: On the Plot Device tab, select DWF ePlot.pc3 from the Name list of devices.

A2005-A2006: Select DWF ePlot.pc3 from the Name list of devices.

5. A2000-A2004: On the Layout Settings tab, select ANSI B (17.00 x 11.00 Inches) from the list of Paper sizes.

A2005-A2006: Select ANSI B (17.00 x 11.00 Inches) from the list of Paper sizes.

6. A2000-A2004: On the Layout Settings tab, select a style from the Plot Style list. Use acad.ctb/stb for color plots (aclt.ctb/stb for LT users). For a black and white output, select monochrome.ctb/stb .

A2005-A2006: Ditto.

7. A2000-A2004: Click OK to close the Page Setup dialog box and see the result of your settings.

A2005-A2006: Click OK, then click Close from the Page Setup Manager to see the layout settings.

The viewport rectangle now appears smaller since the original page size was probably an A size and you have configured the layout to a B size (17 x 11).

8. Right-click on the Layout1 tab and click Rename. Enter B size (17 x 11), then click OK.

9. To make this real easy, save this drawing to your Desktop (certainly not something I typically recommend), and name it CT_Aug Plot Sheets.dwg.
10. To test this, open any AutoCAD drawing. Maybe you want to open one from the Sample folder or one you have recently worked on.
11. A2000-A2002: Open DesignCenter and click on the Desktop icon on the toolbar at the top of DesignCenter, then navigate to the CT_Aug Plot Sheets.dwg and click the + sign to display the named object nodes.

A2004-A2006: Open DesignCenter. Depending upon your OS, you may need to go to C:\Documents & Settings \Yournamehere\Desktop to see the CT_Aug Plot Sheets.dwg file.

12. Click on the Layouts node to display the layouts… which just happens to include B Size (17 x 11)
13. To add that layout to the current drawing, you can either drag it into the drawing or just double-click that layout name.

14. Finally, click on the B Size (17 x 11) tab in your drawing, then double-click inside the viewport rectangle and use ZoomExtents to see your drawing.

Like I said at the beginning, those are the very fundamentals. At least you now have a better handle on using Layouts from the DesignCenter and you may be making some mental leaps on how to optimally implement this approach to your title blocks.

Next issue we'll look at even more applications for DesignCenter!

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