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AutoCAD Productivity

Tool Palette Basics

by Michael Beall

From: AutoCAD Productivity Articles #144
Originally published: February 2016

I learned something new about tool palettes last year — thanks to Nate at Wellcare in Tampa — and I wanted to pass it along. It's a trick that I should have thought of and can be used in a number of situations in AutoCAD. Specifically, the Ctrl key!

Short version: Rather than doing a right-click Copy / right-click Paste — which always put the copy at the bottom of the tab — simply hold down Ctrl, then drag & drop.

How to Copy Tools Onto and Between Tabs on a Tool Palette

  1. Open the Tool Palette (Ctrl + 3). [For future reference, if you're new to palettes, I have a sample palette on my website, complete with a block source drawing and instructions.]

  2. Copy a toolTo copy a tool below itself, hold down Ctrl, select the tool, then drag it down a smidge and release. You should see a very small plus-sign at your cursor indicating that you are making a copy.

  3. To copy a tool between tabs, hold down Ctrl, then drag your cursor onto another tab and hold it there. You will initially see a No-Can-Do sign, but then it will flip over to that tab.

  4. Drag your tool to the desired location — you will see the same plus-sign at your cursor — then release!

    Copying between tabs

See all the articles published in February 2016

Michael's Corner

Between 2003 and 2016, Michael Beall (and one or two guests) wrote almost 600 articles for CADTutor. The focus of these articles is AutoCAD productivity, and although some of them are now more than a few years old, most remain relevant to current versions of AutoCAD. The article above is just one example. Check out Michael's Corner for a full listing.

Tip of the Day

Layer States and Viewports

Did you know that Layer States can be saved and used to control visibility of layers per viewport? If you create and save a couple of layer states within an active viewport, you can then toggle them back and forth without affecting any other viewports, or model space. The changes only occur within the active viewport.

Try this:

Create a bunch of random objects in model space on different layers. Now switch to paper space and create two viewports so that you can see all the model space objects in both viewports. Now activate one of the viewports and open the Express Tools LMAN layer states manager. Create and save a new layer state. Now close LMAN and freeze some of the objects within the viewport. Open LMAN back up and create another new layer state. All of this must be done within the active viewport. You can now toggle back and forth between the two layer states within the active viewport without affecting model space or any other viewports. You can also switch to another viewport and use the same layer states on it, or create new ones.

Today's tip is by Cad64

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