Sheet Sets, Titleblocks, and Fields

I recently discovered the power of using Sheet Sets with Fields in AutoCAD 2008. We have a project that requires us to use sequentially numbered sheets. The client also requires us to use those sheet numbers when referencing between drawings. Since we are still developing the set and may have to insert drawings into the sequence, we may have to renumber many of the sheets, so the dynamic nature of Fields will come in handy.

Overlays vs. Attachements Best Practices

I added a section on Xref Overlays versus Attachments to the Best Practices guide.

Classic Xref

Since AutoCAD 2007, the Xref Manager has changed from this:

to this:

Personally, I prefer the old-school version, for two reasons. One, it loads faster, and two, it is easier to change an xref from Attachment to Overlay.

AutoCAD Blog Roundup

CAD Digest offers a number of new pointers to various tips around the web:

• Erhan Toker gives us a tip on how to use Polar Tracking.
• Ellen Finkelstein espouses on the benefits of using Layer States.
• Burak ÖzdemIr shows us the great TCASE command.
• Ward Romberger tells us how to delete duplicates with OVERKILL.
• Eren Pala explains how to rein in an annoying UCS Icon.

And R.K. McSwain has an excellent bit on the different kinds of Polylines.

Best Practices: Object Snaps

I put up a section on Object Snaps in the Best Practices guide.

Best Practices: Callouts

I added a small piece about callouts to the Best Practices Guide.

AutoCAD Blog Roundup

Lynn Allen has a post about how to customize double-click functionality.

R.K. McSwain over at CAD Panacea has a useful post on making unnecessarly large drawing files smaller.

Best Practices: Layer Separation

I added a section to the Best Practices guide on Layer Separation.

Okay, that was complicated

I just ran into a giant brick wall trying to update the Civil 2008 Object Enabler for AutoCAD 2008. I first tried to install the latest OE. Not so easy, because it told me that I already had an older version installed and I needed to uninstall it first. Okay, so I go to Windows Control Panel:Add/Remove Programs and click Remove for the “Civil 2008 Object Enabler for AutoCAD 2008″ entry. It then tells me that it needs the original installation package “2B5.tmp_AutoCAD_2008_-_English_(United_States).msi”.

AutoCAD Blog Roundup

R.K. McSwain has a well-written tutorial about how to set up Paper Space Layouts.

Dave Dixon posted a quick tip on how to eliminate that huge list of annotative scales.

From the Ground Up has posted a handy LISP file for quickly changing polyline elevations.

Ward Romberger explains the usefulness (or futility) of plotting with Lines Merge.