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 July 2005

Introduction to Fields in A2005 & A2006

Wonderful feature and very easy to implement. I could teach on fields for a couple hours but, alas, I only have this non-verbal venue so let me show you a cool application for a Field in AutoCAD 2005 and 2006.

Using the Field feature, you can now take some of the raw data laying around in AutoCAD, as well as your computer, and add it to the drawing as Mtext, an attribute, or as a simple field.

One application for a field is to access the stored file information and time/date information from your computer and create a plot stamp with the desired configuration. This is optimally done using Mtext.

1. Open the Field dialog with InsertField. You could also just type FIELD.
2. In the Field Names listing, select Date, then select a format from the Examples column.
3. Click OK to close the Field dialog box and you see the field text is attached to your cursor.

Note: You can change the Height or Justification at this point or after you have placed the text.

4. Specify a location for the data field.

Tip: Turn off the gray background mask color for the data field on the User Preferences tab of Options. The gray background will not print, it just let's you know it's a field.

5. To add the filename, double-click the date text to open the Mtext Editor, then position your cursor where the new data is to be placed and add a space.

6. Right-click in the space and select Insert Field from the shortcut menu to open the Field dialog box.
7. In the Field Names listing, click Filename and then check the desired options.

8. Click OK to close the Field dialog box and insert the path and filename into the text field.

Tip: Since the Field value appears in the Mtext editor, you can add text as necessary. In the example, I added the "Drawing" and "Date" text in bold, then underlined the field values.

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