Skip to Content
AutoCAD® 2011 & AutoCAD LT® 2011 Bible
book

AutoCAD® 2011 & AutoCAD LT® 2011 Bible

by Ellen Finkelstein
June 2010
Intermediate to advanced
1332 pages
33h 58m
English
Wiley
Content preview from 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 ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

AutoCAD® 2010 and AutoCAD LT® 2010 Bible

AutoCAD® 2010 and AutoCAD LT® 2010 Bible

Ellen Finkelstein

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9780470608234Purchase book