Expert: Bill DeShawn - 9/21/2005

Question
Hi Bill!  I work for a company called Corle Building Systems designing steel buildings.  My problem is that I can't figure out how to set my start up for AutoCad to open with the dim style already set to Architectural and my units on architectural.  Also I have to redraw my blocks everytime I open a new job.  I know there is a way to set it up but I am having no luck. Very frustrating.  Thanks for your time and any input would be greatly appreciated.

Answer
I'm sure you've done a ton of drawings or you have drawings that are already using the right units.  And you have drawings with blocks you need in the drawings. For drawing setup, you can save one of those drawing as a .dwt file (which is a drawing template file).  You can save it in the template folder.  When you start a new drawing, you will get a dialog box where you can pick a template out of a folder.  If you click on the down arrow to the right of "Look in", you will be able to see exactly where the folder resides and you can use your SAVE command or SAVEAS command to place a copy of that drawing as a template in that folder.  The next time you start a new drawing, you can use that template file to choose from.  You can name it anything you want, just as long as it's a TEMPLATE or a .dwt file.  

Also, get familiar with the WBLOCK command.  Some of the blocks will be available via the TEMPLATE drawing that you create, but others need to be made available by using WBLOCK to save a block to the hard drive.  Keep all your blocks in a common place and name them strategically so that you will be able to find them by name when you need them.  Don't forget to add the folder to your Support File Search Path in your OPTIONS dialog box under the FILES tab.

Let me know if you need any more help
Keep in touch
Bill DeShawn
http://my.sterling.net/~bdeshawn