AutoCAD® 2009 & AutoCAD LT® 2009 All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies®

Chapter 1. Playing with Blocks

This minibook of the AutoCAD 2009 & AutoCAD LT 2009 All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies takes a look at creating and managing reusable content. Reusable content is content that needs to be created only once and then can be used in many different drawings. The ability to reuse content was a huge advantage for those early drafters that dared to venture into the unknown world of CAD so many years ago. If you've ever had the pleasure of drafting on a board, you may have used plastic templates for things such as circles, furniture in a house plan, and mechanical fasteners. Those plastic templates allowed you to draw the same objects over and over without drawing them completely from scratch each time. As you will find out, blocks are AutoCAD's equivalent to plastic drafting templates, except they are much more powerful.

Working with Reusable Content

AutoCAD allows you to create geometry templates called blocks. A block is an object that is made up of many different objects and given a name to reference when you want to place the block in a drawing. Blocks are great for providing a consistent look to your drawings. You may have already used a block in your drawings for a border that contains a project name, date, and other information that relates to a particular drawing. Blocks can be defined with static or dynamic geometry, and contain elements called attributes, which can be used to store static text or allow users to enter their own text value. Attributes ...