AutoCAD 2013 and AutoCAD LT 2013: No Experience Required

CHAPTER 13

Managing External References

The floor plan of a complex building project might actually be a composite of several Autodesk® AutoCAD® files that are linked together as external references to the current drawing. This enables parts of a drawing to be worked on at different workstations (or in different offices) while remaining linked to a central host file. In mechanical engineering, a drawing might similarly be a composite of the various subparts that make up an assembly.

External references, or xrefs, are DWG files that have been temporarily connected to the current drawing and are used as reference information. The externally referenced drawing is visible in the current drawing. You can manipulate its layers, colors, linetypes, and ...