Summary

Working with Data

Part III covers the various ways that you work with data in your drawings. This part brings you to a new level of sophistication

in terms of automation and interfacing with other drawings and data. Chapter 18 covers blocks and attributes, which enable you to work repetitively with objects and text. You can build intelligent, flexible blocks using the Dynamic Blocks feature. You can use attribute text to accurately place text and to create a simple database of information related to your objects. Chapter 19 explains how to refer to other drawings with external references, also called xrefs. Chapter 20 describes how to connect sophisticated external databases to objects in your drawings.

P A R T

III

In This Part

Chapter 18

Working with Blocks and Attributes

Chapter 19

Referencing Other

Drawings

Chapter 20

Working with External Databases

Working with Blocks and Attributes

As you draw, you’ll find that you often need to place the same group of objects several times in a drawing. An architect needs

to place windows and doors many times in a plan layout of a house. An electrical engineer places electrical symbols in a drawing again and again. A mechanical model may include nuts, bolts, and surface finish symbols many times in a drawing. Blocks are groups of objects that you save and name so that you can insert them in your drawing whenever you need them. A block is one object, regardless of the number of individual objects that were used to create it. Because it’s one object, you can easily move, copy, scale, or rotate it. However, if necessary, you can explode a block to obtain the original individual objects.

A great advantage of blocks is that by changing the block definition, you can update all of the instances of that block in that drawing. Another advantage of blocks is that they reduce the size of the drawing file. A drawing stores the composition of a block only once, along with a simple reference to the block each time it’s inserted, instead of storing each individual object in each block in the drawing database.

As soon as you have a block in a drawing, you can work with it as with any other object. You can snap to object snaps of the individual objects within blocks, as well as trim and extend to objects within blocks, even though you can’t edit the individual objects. For example, you can draw a line from the midpoint of a line in a block.

Many disciplines use parts libraries that may consist of thousands of items. You use the block feature to save and insert these parts. You can save many blocks in a drawing or place each in a separate file so that you can insert them in any drawing you wish.

The new dynamic blocks are blocks that contain parameters for insertion and editing. You can create a dynamic block that takes the place of numerous similar regular blocks by giving it the flexibility to take on various sizes, rotations, visibility variations, and more.

You can attach attributes to blocks. Attributes are labels that are associated with blocks. Attributes have two main uses: to label objects and to create a simple database. If you have AutoCAD, you can use fields in your attributes to automate the generation of text. (Chapter 13 explains all about fields.)

This chapter explains how to make the most of blocks and attributes.

18C H A P T E R

In This Chapter

Combining objects into blocks

Saving blocks as drawing files

Inserting blocks

and files into drawings

Managing blocks and parts libraries

Creating and using dynamic blocks

Using

Windows features

Working with attributes