CADTutor: The best free help for AutoCAD on the web

Michael BeallFrom: AutoCAD Productivity Articles #120
Originally published: December 2012

Layer Fade with Transparency

by Michael Beall

While we're on the subject, you probably know that by default, layers that are Locked, fade.

You may also know that, by default, Xrefs fade, too. To minimize the confusion, however, I typically encourage my customers to set the layer fade percentage for Xrefs to <0>. [Options >Display tab]

Before transparency

There's actually an additional method by which your objects may be faded, and that's using the Transparency feature in the Layer Properties Manager.

In the following example, I set the transparency for the panel tags to 65%.

How to Set the Layer Transparency

  1. Layer managerOpen the Layer Properties Manager, then select the layer for the transparency setting, just so you can line it up.

  2. Scroll over to the column for Transparency, then click the current value (probably 0).

  3. You can either enter a new value, or choose from the available values in the drop-down list. The change in the drawing will be immediate.

After transparency

Two Major Insights:

  1. The Show/Hide Transparency [TPY] button on the Status bar needs to be enabled to see the transparency result in the drawing.

    Show/Hide Transparency
  2. In the Plot dialog box, under Plot Options, check the box to Plot Transparency to see the result in the plot.

    Plot Transparency

See all the articles published in December 2012

See this article in the December 2012 Corner

Local Navigation

Sponsored Links

Accessibility statement

Valid XHTML 1.0!Valid CSS!Creative Commons Licence