About Formatting the Drawing

Formatting means associating properties with drawing entities and using styles for different categories of entities.

Entity Properties

All drawing entities, such as Lines or Circles, have several properties. Some of the properties like Layer, LineColor, LineStyle, LineWeight, and transparency are common to all entities.

You can set entity properties on the Properties palette.

General properties of drawing entities include:

• Layer
• LineColor
• LineStyle
• LineScale
• LineWeight
• ZPlane and Thickness
• Transparency: Entity transparency lets you fade entities and is primarily used for hatched and filled areas. Linework displays behind transparent areas. You can set transparency from 0 (no transparency) to 90%.

  You can organize the entities of a drawing using Layers, then set and change layer properties with the Layer Manager. Use Layer Tools to change Layer modes or to delete entities on Layers.

Entity Styles

You can also change the styles of certain types of entities:

• TextStyle
• DimensionStyle
• TableStyle
• PointStyle
• RichLineStyle

The Styles toolbar contains commands to create, modify, and manage styles.

Other Formatting Commands

Additionally, you can set the unit system and rename user-defined objects such as Layers, views, Blocks, or styles.

• Unit system: Controls coordinate and angle display formats and precision.
• Renaming: Changes user-defined object names such as Layers, views, Blocks, or styles.

Parent Topic

Formatting the Drawing