LESSON 4-1

AUTOCAD TEMPLATE FILES

LESSON 4-2

OBJECT SNAPS - OSNAPS

LESSON 4-3

LINETYPES IN AUTOCAD

LESSON 4-4

AUTOCAD FILE TYPES

LESSON 4-5

USING AND SETTING GRIPS

LESSON 4-6

AUTOCAD'S INQUIRY TOOLS

LESSON 4-7

EXTERNAL REFERENCE FILES - XREFS

LESSON 4-8

INTRODUCTION TO SYSTEM VARIABLES

LESSON 4-9

TABLES

LESSON 4-10

INTRODUCTION TO SET SHEETS

LESSON 4-11

MODIFYING AND CREATING DIMENSIONS

Notes about these lessons:

Most regular text is in burgundy on these pages. Anything you see on AutoCAD's command line is in blue Courier font. Important terms are usually highlighted in red and will also have hyper links attached. Whenever you see a icon, click on it for more information.

Topics covered in this Lesson:

Template Files

AUTOCAD TEMPLATE FILES

Whether you know it not, you have already used templates to begin a new drawing. AutoCAD uses a template every time it starts up. If you do not use your own template, AutoCAD will use a default one.

A template is a drawing file that includes some of the following settings:

• Unit type and precision

• Drawing limits

• Snap, Grid, and Ortho settings

• Layer organization

• Title blocks, borders, and logos

• Dimension and text styles

• Linetypes

In many cases, you do not want to set these things every time you begin a drawing. By having a template with all of these parameters pre-set, you can work more efficiently, faster and consistently. There is no difference between a template file and regular DWG other than the extension.

Most companies should have a set of template (or prototype) drawings available to their CAD staff. This would include presets for layer names, colors, title blocks, etc so that every drawing from that company has a consistent look.

To create a template drawing, you first have to set up any parameters that you feel you would need (see the list above) in a regular drawing. Once you have this, you can save your drawing as a template. Do to this, go to the File Pull-Down Menu and choose the ‘Save As' option.

You will see this dialog box:

You have to change the ‘Files of type' setting from a DWG file to a DWT (template) file.

Once you've changed this, make sure you save it in the folder where you can load it later.

To use the template for a new drawing, choose the 'New' option to start a new file and select the template you want.