Tips & Tools Weekly (Vol. 12, No. 44)
9 Dec, 2007Dear Readers: Tips & Tools Weekly will take a break for the next few weeks and then resume publication on January 7. We at Cadalyst wish you and your families a healthy and happy holiday season and thank you for being such loyal subscribers this year. See you in 08! This Week's Software Tips Congratulations November Winner! Quick Text Alignment NOTES FROM CADALYST TIP PATROL: We agree on the usefulness of the basic Ctrl+A command in the Mtext Editor for AutoCAD 2008. It also works for multiline text. Caution: This feature does not exist for AutoCAD 2006/LT and earlier. Generate Drawing Title "My title blocks all contain multiple attributes for date, revision, and the like. In the spirit of keeping good CAD standards, I have inserted a field for my drawing title as follows. Using this field, the drawing title and drawing name remain identical, and the title is automatically updated when I save my drawing. "While in the Mtext editor, right-click and choose Insert Field from the pull-down menu. This brings up the Field dialog box. Choose the Filename and Title case with no file extension. Ensure that your font style, size, etc., are correct in the editor, then choose OK. When your title block is inserted into a drawing and you save it, the title block area that you have specified is updated with the drawing name. It's that easy." NOTES FROM CADALYST TIP PATROL: The Attibutes tool is powerful, yet underused. Using the Mtext editor, the Insert Field command, and Field dialog box as outlined may streamline (and encourage greater) atttribute use. Just make sure that others who use these drawings are as up-to-date as you are. Also remember that drawing titles are usually descriptive (i.e., Massaponax Interceptor Pumping Station or Sliding Hill Intersection), while the drawing number is, as implied, a sequence of numbers and sometimes letters that can be listed and accessed through the company's server. Even with good and careful folder management, how many Millwork Details drawings might be on your computer or server? It's more likely that the drawing's name is something like A3.01-3902-R1 MILLWORK DETAILS.DWG. It's probably not really one's intention to have this text populated into the title block without further editing. Note: These follow-up tips have not been tested by the Cadalyst Tip Patrol. Follow-Up: Revise All Attribute Blocks Kathryn Morrical also reminds us that most of AutoCAD's block-related Express tools don't work with dynamic blocks -- Gatte, Blockreplace, and Bcount are just a few examples. Follow-Up: Faster Map Loading MicroStation Tip: Easily Reselect V8 Elements Axiom offers many Microstation Tips on its MicroStationTips.com Web site.
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