Xref Fade

Does anyone know if there is a way to make the Xref in the working drawing faded even when not refediting?

Thank You

There is nothing built in to do this automatically, but you could sort of fake it by creating a layer state where all xref layers are set to color 251 (or the color of your choice). Of course this has no effect on xref entities whose color is not bylayer.

I have a lisp routine that uses a similar technique to do a "layer isolate" on an xref layer.

Hi there do you still have the layer isolate lisp routine?It would come in handy for me if you could post it up on this site does it come with the uniso command also ?

thank you

BD

I used to have a lisp I created that will change the xrefs to any color you designate. The only thing it wouldn't change are blocks within the xrefes that were not bylayer colors. It was actually fast. We use in sometimes to set the xref layer states to show shaded for phasing of a project.

Just my 2 cents........

We use in sometimes to set the xref layer states to show shaded for phasing of a project.

I use Layer States to control "fade" of an XREF as well. We use color 9 for walls, column lines, etc. then the ceiling grid, stairs, equipment, doors, windows, etc. all get a color 190. but to make it look "faded" we use 251 instead of 9, and 196 instead of 190. This is the best way unless you have version 2008, which actually has a faded property for XREF's.

:wink:

In '08 you can set locked layers to be faded (% transparent) in the model. I sometimes lock (and fade) my xref layer to easily see what is xrefed.

I don't remember if earlier versions have this option.

Not sure if this is worth bumping, but we've been doing a search in the office to find out why our refs fade when we lock them (using 2008).

The command for controllling this is: LAYLOCKFADECTL and the higher you set it (up to 100), the darker the xref becomes if it's locked. Had me scratching my head for a while.

Do you need to control the fading only during editing in CAD or even the printout?

Do you need to control the fading only during editing in CAD or even the printout?

Well, I just followed the above steps and stopped reading once my xref had faded. How do you get it to print faded?

Is there a way to make the “Xref fading” affect a plot? We want to keep the xref’s colors and ling weights just have it fade it while in model space and on a plot.

Is there a way to make the “Xref fading” affect a plot? We want to keep the xref’s colors and ling weights just have it fade it while in model space and on a plot.

Use STB files to plot instead of CTB, with STB this is easy, set the xref layers to the named plot style for screening.

Use STB files to plot instead of CTB, with STB this is easy, set the xref layers to the named plot style for screening.

Can you do something similar for a PDF Xref? I want my PDF background to be faded out with my bold lines over it.

If you are using acad2011, you can change the transparency of the layers

If you are using acad2011, you can change the transparency of the layers

But my PDF file does not have layers. Do you mean the layer that I insert the XREF'd PDF file on? I thought I tried that but I'll try again.