Chapter 5

Keeping Track of Layers and Blocks

Imagine a filing system that has only one category into which you put all your records. For only a handful of documents, such a filing system might work. However, as soon as you start to accumulate more documents, you would want to start separating them into meaningful categories, perhaps alphabetically or by their use, so you could find them more easily.

The same is true for drawings. If you have a simple drawing with only a few objects, you can get by without using layers. But as soon as your drawing gets the least bit complicated, you’ll want to start sorting your objects into layers to keep track of what’s what. Layers don’t restrict you when you’re editing objects such as blocks or groups, and you can set up layers so that you can easily identify which object belongs to which layer.

In this chapter, you’ll learn how to create and use layers to keep your drawings organized. You’ll learn how color can play an important role while you’re working with layers, and you’ll also learn how to include linetypes such as dashes and center lines through the use of layers.

In this chapter, you will learn to:

• Organize information with layers
• Control layer visibility
• Keep track of blocks and layers

Organizing Information with Layers

You can think of layers as overlays on which you keep various types of information (see Figure 5-1). In a floor plan of a building, for example, you want to keep the walls, ceiling, plumbing fixtures, wiring, and furniture separate so that you can display or plot them individually or combine them in different ways. It’s also a good idea to keep notes and reference symbols, as well as the drawing’s dimensions, on their own layers. As your drawing becomes more complex, you can turn the various layers on and off to allow easier display and modification.

For example, one of your consultants might need a plot of just the dimensions and walls, without all the other information; another consultant might need only a furniture layout. In the days of manual drafting, you would have had to redraw your plan for each consultant or use overlay drafting techniques, which could be cumbersome. With the AutoCAD® 2014 software, you can turn off the layers you don’t need and plot a drawing containing only the required information. A carefully planned layering scheme helps you produce a document that combines the types of information needed in each case.

Figure 5-1 Placing drawing elements on separate layers

Using layers also lets you modify your drawings more easily. For example, suppose you have an architectural drawing with separate layers for the walls, the ceiling plan, and the floor plan. If any change occurs in the wall locations, you can turn on the ceiling plan layer to see where the new wall locations will affect the ceiling, make the proper adjustments, and then turn it off again to see the walls more clearly.

AutoCAD allows an unlimited number of layers, and you can name each layer anything you want, using any characters, with the exception of these: < > / " : ; ? * | , = '.

Creating and Assigning Layers

You’ll start your exploration of layers by using a palette to create a new layer, giving your layer a name, and assigning it a color. Then you’ll look at alternate ways of creating a layer through the command line. Next you’ll assign the new layer to the objects in your drawing. Start by getting familiar with the Layer Properties Manager:

Figure 5-2 The Select Color dialog box

From this point on, any object assigned to the Wall layer will appear green, unless the object is specifically assigned a different color.

Using Auto-Hide with the Layer Properties Manager

The Layer Properties Manager is a non-modal (or modeless) palette, which means that any change you make within the palette will take effect immediately in the drawing. It also means that the palette can stay open even while you perform other operations that aren’t layer related. Throughout this chapter, we’ll ask you to open or close the Layer Properties Manager, but if you prefer, you can keep it open all the time. If you decide to keep it open, you may want to use the palette’s Auto-Hide feature. Click the Auto-Hide icon toward the top of the palette’s title bar so that it changes to a single-sided arrowhead.

With Auto-Hide on, the palette will minimize to display only its title bar. To open the palette, click the title bar. To minimize it, point the cursor anywhere outside the palette for a moment. You can also force the palette to the left or right margin of the AutoCAD window. To do this, right-click the palette title bar and select Anchor Left or Anchor Right.

Using True or PANTONE Colors

In the preceding exercise, you chose a color from the Index Color tab of the Select Color dialog box. Most of the time, you’ll find that the Index Color tab includes enough colors to suit your needs. But if you’re creating a presentation drawing in which color selection is important, you can choose colors from either the True Color or the Color Books tab of the Select Color dialog box.

The True Color tab offers a full range of colors through a color palette similar to the one found in Adobe Photoshop and other image-editing programs (see Figure 5-3).

Figure 5-3 The True Color tab

You have the choice of using hue, saturation, and luminance, which is the HSL color model, or you can use the RGB (red, green, blue) color model. You can select HSL or RGB from the Color Model drop-down list in the upper-right corner of the dialog box (see Figure 5-4).

Figure 5-4 The Color Model drop-down list

You can also select from DIC, PANTONE, and RAL color books, to match those widely used print color systems, by using the Color Books tab (see Figure 5-5).

Let’s continue with our look at layers in AutoCAD.

Figure 5-5 The Color Books tab

Understanding the Layer Properties Manager Palette

The Layer Properties Manager conforms to the Windows interface standard. The most prominent feature of this palette is the layer list box, as you saw in the previous exercise. Notice that the bar at the top of the list of layers offers several columns for the various layer properties. Just as in Windows Explorer, you can adjust the width of each column in the list of layers by clicking and dragging either side of the column headings. You can also sort the layer list based on one of these properties by clicking the property name at the top of the list. Also, just as with other Windows list boxes, you can Shift+click to select a block of layer names, or you can Ctrl+click individual names to select multiple layers throughout the list. These features will become helpful as your list of layers grows.

Above the layer list, you can see four tool buttons.

You’ve already seen how the New Layer tool works. The tool next to the New Layer tool, New Layer VP Frozen In All Viewports, looks similar to the New Layer tool and performs a similar function. The main difference is that the New Layer VP Frozen In All Viewports tool freezes the newly created layer. To delete layers, you select a layer or group of layers and then click the Delete Layer tool. Be aware that you can’t delete layer 0, locked layers, or layers that contain objects. The Set Current tool enables you to set the current layer, the one on which you want to work. You can also see at a glance which layer is current by the green check mark in the Status column of the layer list.

Another way to create or delete layers is to select a layer or set of layers from the list box and then right-click. A menu appears, which includes the same functions as the tools above the layer list.

You’ll also notice another set of three tools farther to the left of the New Layer tool. Those tools offer features to organize your layers in a meaningful way. You’ll get a closer look at them a little later in this chapter in the section “Taming an Unwieldy List of Layers.”

Controlling Layers through the Layer Command

You’ve seen how the Layer Properties Manager makes it easy to view and edit layer information and how you can select layer colors from the Select Color dialog box. But you can also control layers through the Command prompt.

Use these steps to control layers via the Command prompt:

Enter an option
[?/Make/Set/New/Rename/ON/OFF/Color/Ltype/
LWeight/TRansparency/MATerial/VStyle/
Plot/ Freeze/Thaw/LOck/Unlock/stAte/
Description/rEconcile]:

Each method of controlling layers has its own advantages. The Layer Properties Manager offers more information about your layers at a glance. On the other hand, the Layer command offers a quick way to control and create layers if you’re in a hurry. Also, if you intend to write custom macros, you’ll want to know how to use the Layer command, as opposed to using the Layer Properties Manager, because palettes can’t be controlled through custom toolbar buttons or scripts.

Assigning Layers to Objects

When you create an object, that object is assigned to the current layer. Until now, only one layer has existed—layer 0—and it contains all the objects you’ve drawn so far. Now that you’ve created some new layers, you can reassign objects to them by using the Properties palette:

The bathroom walls are now on the new layer called Wall and are green. Layers are more easily distinguished from one another when you use colors to set them apart.

Using the Quick Properties Panel

This chapter focuses on the tools in the Ribbon and the Properties palette to set the properties of an object. You can also use the Quick Properties panel to change the color, layer, and linetype of objects. When the Quick Properties panel is turned on, it appears automatically when you select an object. You can turn it on or off by clicking the Quick Properties tool in the status bar.

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Next, you’ll practice the commands you learned in this section and try some new ones by creating new layers and changing the layer assignments of the rest of the objects in your bathroom:

In step 3 of the previous exercise, you used the Properties palette, which offered several options for modifying the block. The options displayed in the Properties palette depend on the objects you’ve selected. With only one object selected, AutoCAD displays options that apply specifically to that object. With several objects selected, you’ll see a more limited set of options because AutoCAD can change only those properties that are common to all the objects selected.

Note that in a block, you can change the color assignment and linetype of only those objects that are on layer 0. See the sidebar “Controlling Colors and Linetypes of Blocked Objects” later in this chapter.

Working on Layers

So far, you’ve created layers and then assigned objects to them. In this section, you’ll learn how to use the layer drop-down list in the Layers panel to assign layers to objects. In the process, you’ll make some additions to the drawing.

The current layer is still layer 0, and unless you change the current layer, every new object you draw will be on layer 0. Here’s how to change the current layer:

Figure 5-6 Door at wall with doorjambs added

Because you assigned the color green to the Jamb layer, on your own screen you’ll see that the two lines you just drew to represent the doorjambs are green. This gives you a visual cue about which layer you’re on as you draw.

Now you’ll use the part of the wall between the jambs as a line representing the door header (the part of the wall above the door). To do this, you’ll have to cut the line into three line segments and then change the layer assignment of the segment between the jambs:

Although it may not be obvious, you’ve just broken the right-side wall line into three line segments: one at the door opening and two more on either side of the jambs. You can also use the Break tool (below the Break At Point tool) to produce a gap in a line segment.

The Break At Point tool won’t work on a circle. You can, however, use the Break tool to place a small gap in the circle. If you create a small enough gap, the circle will still look like a full circle.

Next you’ll change the Layer property of the line between the two jambs to the Ceiling layer. However, instead of using the Properties palette as you’ve done in earlier exercises, you’ll use a shortcut method:

In this exercise, you saw that when you select an object with no command active, the object’s properties are immediately displayed in the Properties palette under Object Color, Linetype, and Lineweight. Using this method, you can also change an object’s color, linetype, and lineweight independent of its layer. Just as with the Properties palette, you can select multiple objects and change their layers through the layer drop-down list. These options in the Home tab’s Properties panel offer a quick way to edit some of the properties of objects.

Now, you’ll finish the bathroom by adding a sink to a layer named Casework:

Figure 5-7 The bathroom with sink and counter added

Controlling Layer Visibility

We mentioned earlier that you’ll sometimes want to display only certain layers to work within a drawing. In this bathroom is a door header that would normally appear only in a reflected ceiling plan. To turn off a layer so that it becomes invisible, you click the lightbulb icon in the Layer Properties Manager, as shown in these steps:

Getting Multiple Uses from a Drawing Using Layers

Layering lets you use a single AutoCAD drawing for multiple purposes. A single drawing can show both the general layout of the plan and more detailed information such as the equipment layout and the floor-paving layout.

The following two images are reproductions of the San Francisco Main Library’s lower level and show how one floor plan file was used for two purposes. The first view shows the layout of furnishings, and the second view shows a paving layout. In each case, the same floor plan file was used, but in the first panel, the paving information is on a layer that is turned off. Layers also facilitate the use of differing scales in the same drawing. Frequently, a small-scale drawing of an overall plan will contain the same data for an enlarged view of other portions of the plan, such as a stairwell or an elevator core. The detailed information, such as notes and dimensions, might be on a layer that is turned off for the overall plan.

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You can also control layer visibility by using the layer drop-down list on the Layers panel:

Figure 5-8 explains the roles of the other icons in the layer drop-down list.

Figure 5-8 The layer drop-down list icons

When you start to work with layouts in Chapter 8, “Introducing Printing, Plotting, and Layouts,” and Chapter 16, “Laying Out Your Printer Output,” you’ll learn about viewports. A viewport is like a custom view of your drawing. You can have multiple viewports in a layout, each showing a different part of your drawing. Layer properties can be controlled for each viewport independently, so you can set up different linetypes, colors, and layer visibility for each viewport.

Finding the Layers You Want

With only a handful of layers, it’s fairly easy to find the layer you want to turn off. It becomes much more difficult, however, when the number of layers exceeds a couple dozen. The Layer Properties Manager offers some useful tools to help you find the layers you want quickly.

Suppose you have several layers whose names begin with C, such as C-lights, C-header, and C-pattern, and you want to find those layers quickly. You can click the Name button at the top of the layer list to sort the layer names in alphabetic order. (Click the Name button again to reverse the order.) To select those layers for processing, click the first layer name that starts with C, and then scroll down the list until you find the last layer of the group and Shift+click it. All the layers between those layers are selected. If you want to deselect some of those layers, hold down the Ctrl key while clicking the layer names you don’t want to include in your selection. Another option is to Ctrl+click the names of other layers you want selected.

The Color and Linetype headings at the top of the list let you sort the list by virtue of the color or linetype assignments of the layers. Other columns sort the list by virtue of status: On/Off, Freeze/Thaw, Lock/Unlock, and so forth. (See the sidebar “Freeze, Lock, Transparency, and Other Layer Options” later in this chapter.)

Now try changing the layer settings again by turning off all the layers except Wall and Ceiling, leaving just a simple rectangle. In this exercise, you’ll get a chance to experiment with the On/Off options of the Layer Properties Manager:

In this exercise, you turned off a set of layers by clicking a lightbulb icon. You can freeze/thaw, lock/unlock, or change the color of a group of layers in a similar manner by clicking the appropriate layer property. For example, clicking a color swatch of one of the selected layers opens the Select Color dialog box, in which you can set the color for all the selected layers.

Taming an Unwieldy List of Layers

Chances are you’ll eventually end up with a fairly long list of layers. Managing such a list can become a nightmare, but AutoCAD provides some tools to help you organize layers so you can keep track of them more easily.

On the left side of the Layer Properties Manager is a set of tools and a list box designed to help you with your layer-management tasks (see Figure 5-9).

Figure 5-9 Tools in the Layer Properties Manager to help with your layer-management tasks

In the upper-left corner of the palette is a toolbar with three tools:

Filtering Layers by Their Properties

Below the New Property Filter, New Group Filter, and Layer States Manager tools is a filter list, which is a hierarchical list displaying the different sets of layer properties and group filters. Right now, you don’t have any filters in place, so you see only All and All Used Layers.

In this section, you’ll learn how the tools and the filter list box work. You’ll start with a look at the New Property Filter tool:

Figure 5-10 The Layer Filter Properties dialog box

The layer list shows only the layers that have properties conforming to those you selected in the Layer Filter Properties dialog box. Notice that My List is highlighted in the filter list to the left. This tells you that My List is the current layer property filter being applied to the layer list to the right.

You can change the layer list display by selecting different options in the filter list. Try these steps:

Creating Layer Groups

The preceding exercise shows how you can filter out layer names based on the properties you specify in the Layer Filter Properties dialog box. But suppose you want to create a layer filter list by graphically selecting objects on the screen. You can use the New Group Filter tool to do just that:

You may have noticed the Select Layers ⇒ Replace option in the context menu in step 2. This option lets you completely replace an existing group filter with a new selection set. It works just like the Select Layers ⇒ Add option. You can also click and drag layers from the All layer list to the group filter list name in the left column.

Earlier you saw how you can double-click a properties filter to edit a properties filter list. But group filters work in a slightly different way. If you want to add layers to your group filter, you can click and drag them from the layer list to the group filter name. Here’s how it’s done:

If you want to delete a layer from a group filter, you can use the context menu, as shown in these steps:

You can also convert a layer property filter into a group filter. Select the layer property filter from the filter list, right-click, and then select Convert To Group Filter. The icon for the layer property filter changes to a group filter icon, indicating that it’s now a group filter.

You’ve seen how you can add property and group filters to the Layer Properties Manager by using the tools on the left side of the palette. One tool you haven’t explored yet is the Layer States Manager. To understand how this tool works, you’ll need to learn a little more about AutoCAD; look for a discussion of the Layer States Manager in Chapter 15.

Before you move on, you’ll want to know about a few other options that appear in the Layer Properties Manager (see Figure 5-11):

Figure 5-11 Invert Filter, Refresh tool, and Settings button in the Layer Properties Manager

In the next section, you’ll find some tips for how to use layer names so that you can use text filters more effectively.

Figure 5-12 The Layer Settings dialog box

Naming Layers to Stay Organized

In the previous section, you saw how to create a layer property filter by using the name of a layer. If you name layers carefully, you can use them as a powerful layer-management tool. For example, suppose you have a drawing whose layer names are set up to help you easily identify floor-plan data versus ceiling-plan data, as in the following list:

• A-FP-WALL-JAMB
• A-FP-WIND-JAMB
• A-CP-WIND-HEAD
• A-CP-DOOR-HEAD
• L-FP-CURB
• C-FP-ELEV

The first character in the layer name designates the discipline related to that layer: A for architectural, L for landscape, and C for civil. In this example, layers with names containing the two characters FP signify floor-plan layers. CP designates ceiling-plan information.

These layer examples are loosely based on a layer-naming convention devised by the American Institute of Architects (AIA). As you can see from this example, careful naming of layers can help you manage them.

If you want to isolate only those layers that have to do with floor plans, regardless of their discipline, enter ??FP* in the Name column of the Layer Filter Properties dialog box. You can then give this layer property filter the name Floor Plan by entering Floor Plan in the Filter Name text box (see Figure 5-13).

Figure 5-13 Enter ??FP* in the Name column and Floor Plan in the Filter Name box as shown.

After you’ve created the Floor Plan layer properties list, you can pick Floor Plan from the filter list on the right side of the Layer Properties Manager and only those layers with names containing the letters FP as their third and fourth characters will appear in the list of layers. You can turn off all these layers, change their color assignment, or change other settings quickly without having to wade through layers you don’t want to touch. You can create other filter properties to isolate other groups of layers. AutoCAD keeps these filter lists for future use until you delete them by using the Delete option in the context menu. (Right-click the name of the property filter and choose Delete.)

In the ??FP* example, the question marks (??) tell AutoCAD that the first two characters in the layer name can be anything. The FP tells AutoCAD that the layer name must contain F and P in these two places of the name. The asterisk (*) at the end tells AutoCAD that the remaining characters can be anything. The question marks and asterisk are known as wildcard characters. They’re commonly used filtering tools for the Unix, Linux, and Windows operating systems.

As the number of layers in a drawing grows, you’ll find layer filters an indispensable tool. Bear in mind, however, that the successful use of layer filters can depend on a careful layer-naming convention. If you’re producing architectural plans, you may want to consider the AIA layer-naming guidelines.

Assigning Linetypes to Layers

You’ll often want to use different linetypes to show hidden lines, center lines, fence lines, or other noncontinuous lines. You can assign a color and a linetype to a layer. You then see International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and complex linetypes, including lines that can be used to illustrate gas and water lines in civil work or batt insulation in a wall cavity.

AutoCAD comes with several linetypes, as shown in Figure 5-14. ISO linetypes are designed to be used with specific plotted line widths and linetype scales. For example, if you’re using a pen width of 0.5 mm, set the linetype scale of the drawing to 0.5 as well. (See Chapter 16 for more information on plotting and linetype scale.) You can also create your own linetypes (see Chapter 27, “Managing and Sharing Your Drawings”).

Figure 5-14 Standard, ISO, and complex AutoCAD linetypes

Linetypes that contain text, such as the gas line sample at the bottom of Figure 5-14, use the current text height and font to determine the size and appearance of the text displayed in the line. A text height of 0 displays the text properly in most cases. See Chapter 10, “Adding Text to Drawings,” for more on text styles.

AutoCAD stores linetype descriptions in an external file named Acad.lin, or Acadiso.lin for metric users. You can edit this file in a text editor like Notepad to create new linetypes or to modify existing ones. You’ll see how this is done in Chapter 27.

Adding a Linetype to a Drawing

To see how linetypes work, you’ll add a DASHDOT line in the bathroom plan to indicate a shower curtain rod:

Figure 5-15 The Select Linetype dialog box

Figure 5-16 The Load Or Reload Linetypes dialog box

Controlling Linetype Scale

Although you’ve designated this as a DASHDOT line, it appears solid. Zoom in to a small part of the line and you’ll see that the line is indeed as you specified.

Because your current drawing is at a scale of 1″ = 1′, you must adjust the scale of your linetypes accordingly. This too is accomplished in the Linetype Manager dialog box. Here are the steps:

Figure 5-17 The Linetype Manager dialog box

Figure 5-18 The completed bathroom

You can also use the Ltscale system variable to set the linetype scale. Type LTSCALE↵, and at the Enter new linetype scale factor <1.0000>: prompt, enter 12↵.

Remember that if you assign a linetype to a layer, everything you draw on that layer will be of that linetype. This includes arcs, polylines, and circles. As explained in the sidebar “Assigning Colors, Linetypes, and Linetype Scales to Individual Objects” later in this chapter, you can also assign different colors and linetypes to individual objects rather than relying on their layer assignment to define color and linetype. However, you may want to avoid assigning colors and linetypes directly to objects until you have some experience with AutoCAD and a good grasp of your drawing’s organization.

In the previous exercise, you changed the global linetype scale setting. This affects all noncontinuous linetypes within the current drawing. You can also set the default linetype scale for all new objects with the Current Object Scale option in the Linetype Manager dialog box.

When individual objects are assigned a linetype scale, they’re still affected by the global linetype scale set by the Ltscale system variable. For example, say you assign a linetype scale of 2 to the curtain rod in the previous example. This scale is then multiplied by the global linetype scale of 12, for a final linetype scale of 24.

You can also set the default linetype scale for individual objects by using the Celtscale system variable. After it’s set, only newly created objects are affected. You must use the Properties palette to change the linetype scale of individual existing objects.

If the objects you draw appear in a different linetype from that of the layer on which they’re located, check the default linetype by selecting Other from the Linetype drop-down list on the Home tab’s Properties panel. Then, in the Linetype Manager dialog box, highlight ByLayer in the Linetype list and click the Current button. In addition, check the linetype scale of the object itself by using the Properties palette. A different linetype scale can make a line appear to have an assigned linetype that might not be what you expect. (See the sidebar “Assigning Colors, Linetypes, and Linetype Scales to Individual Objects.”)

Adding the Final Detail

If you’re working through the tutorial, your final task is to set up an insertion point for the current drawing to facilitate its insertion into other drawings in the future. Follow these steps:

Controlling Lineweights

You may have noticed a Lineweight column in the Layer Properties Manager. If you click this option for a given layer, the Lineweight dialog box opens, which enables you to control the plotted thickness of your lines. Plotted lineweights can also be set through direct object property assignment. You can view lineweights as they will appear in your final plot by making setting changes in the Lineweight Settings dialog box, which you’ll learn about in Chapter 16.

With the Lineweight option and Lineweight Settings dialog box, you have greater control over the look of your drawings. This can save time because you don’t have to print your drawing just to check for lineweights. You’ll be able to see how thick or thin your lines are as you edit your drawing. You’ll get a chance to delve into lineweights in Chapter 16.

Keeping Track of Blocks and Layers

The Insert dialog box and the Layer Properties Manager let you view the blocks and layers available in your drawing by listing them in a window. The Layer Properties Manager also includes information about the status of layers. However, you may forget the layer on which an object resides. You’ve seen how the Properties option on the context menu shows you the properties of an object. The List tool in the Properties panel also enables you to get information about individual objects.

Use these steps to see an alternate way to view the properties of a block:

The information in the expanded Command window or the AutoCAD Text Window, except the handle listing, is duplicated in the Properties palette. However, having the data in the Command window or Text Window gives you the flexibility to record it in a text file in case you need to store data about parts of your drawing. You can also use the AutoCAD Text Window to access and store other types of data regarding your drawings.

The Space property listed for the Tub block designates whether the object resides in Model Space or Paper Space. You’ll learn more about these spaces in Chapter 8 and Chapter 16.

Getting a Text File List of Layers or Blocks

With complex drawings, it can be helpful to get a text file that lists the layers or blocks in your drawing. You can do this by using the log-file feature in AutoCAD. At the Command prompt, enter Logfilemode↵ and then enter 1↵. Type-La↵ ?↵↵ (don’t forget the hyphen at the beginning of the La command). If your list of layers is extensive, you may be asked to press ↵ to continue. Do so. Your list of layers appears in the AutoCAD Text Window. For a list of blocks, enter -Insert↵?↵↵. When you’ve obtained your list, close thelog-file feature by typing Logfilemode↵0↵.

Once the log-file feature is closed, you can use Windows Notepad to open the AutoCAD log file located in the C:UsersUser NameAppDataLocalAutodeskAutoCAD 2014R19.1enu folder. You’ll need to change the File Of Type option to All Files. The name of the log file will start with the name of the current drawing, followed by a series of numbers and the .log filename extension, as in 04c-bath-metric_1_1_6500.log.

If you have difficulty finding the log file, enter (getvar "logfilepath") at the AutoCAD Command prompt to get a listing of the log-file location. The log file may also be in a hidden folder, so you may have to turn off the hidden folder setting in Windows Explorer. See Appendix B for instructions on how to do this.

With the log-file feature, you can record virtually anything that appears at the Command prompt. You can even record an entire AutoCAD session. The log file can also be helpful in constructing script files to automate tasks. (See Chapter 26, “Customizing Toolbars, Menus, Linetypes, and Hatch Patterns,” for more information on scripts.) If you want a hard copy of the log file, print it from an application such as Windows Notepad or your favorite word processor.

The Bottom Line