AutoCAD® 2011 & AutoCAD LT® 2011 Bible

Chapter 18. Working with Blocks and Attributes

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 to copy data

• Working with 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. If necessary, you can explode a block to obtain the original individual objects. Many disciplines use parts libraries that may consist of thousands of items. You use the block feature to save and insert these parts.

A great advantage of blocks is that by changing the block definition, you can update all the instances of that block in that drawing. Blocks also reduce the size of the drawing file. A drawing stores the definition of a block only once, along with a simple reference to the block each time it's inserted.

Dynamic blocks are blocks that contain parameters for insertion and editing. You can create a dynamic block that ...