All the content from last year will be available again. However, if you took part in it, you’ll know that I added several bonus exercises to the course forum. Not only will that bonus material be posted, but I’ve created even more exercises and will offer them as well. In addition to the course material, though, I stay pretty active on the forum threads in order to answer any questions you might have during the run of the ATP course.

This extra material and Q/A opportunities will only be available on the AUGI ATP forum for the course and you’ll have to register in order to access it. If you are interested (and I hope you are), please follow this link to the AUGI ATP registration page in order to sign up for the ATP 259 “FIELD of Study” class. Also, if you aren’t a member of AUGI, register now for free here.

A:  AutoCAD doesn’t prompt you to select an object from the drawing you’re inserted the text block into by default. However, there is a default way to select an object in the drawing.

-Go ahead and insert the block containing all of your title block text including the Feld for a Viewport scale.
-Double-click the block to enter the Enhanced Attribute Editor.
-Select the attribute for the scale within the list and right-click the “Value”.
-Select “Edit Field” from the short-cut menu.
-Pick the “Select Object” button from the dialog box and pick your Viewport.
-Hit “OK” back in the dialog box and “OK” in the enhanced attribute editor.
-If you don’t see the change immediately, update your Fields.

There you have it. This solution isn’t as seamless as it could be with a “built in” prompt to select the Viewport when the block is inserted, but it’s an excellent alternative for anyone not skilled or willing enough to create a routine to make it happen.

A:  Unfortunately, Fields aren’t supported in your situation. A list of Field-supported features in AutoCAD 2005 are as follows:

-Use field to count AutoCAD blocks.
-Use field to calculate the area of multiple AutoCAD objects.
-Use field to calculate the length of multiple AutoCAD objects.
-Create the AutoCAD field based on the specific cell of AutoCAD native table.
-Import the specific cell of the Excel worksheet as the AutoCAD field.
-Import the text format text as the AutoCAD field.

So in all actuality, AutoCAD Fields couldn’t be used in conjunction with the Sheet Set Manager in the 2005 release at all. That functionality wasn’t released until AutoCAD 2006.  To give a more complete answer to the post above, Fields and the Sheet Set Manager aren’t fully compatible in AutoCAD LT 2009 either. So even if you updated to a newer version of LT, it wouldn’t fix the issue you’re having.  Also if you have AutoCAD LT 2006 or later, you can build objects with Fields in them from a “full” version of AutoCAD that will then work when used in LT 2006 or later.

A:  A “Date” Field in an attribute for a block doesn’t update dynamically with the calendar date based upon the FIELDEVAL system variable. I’ve also experienced this problem carrying over to Fields within regular text entities without any explanation. However, there are a few easy solutions to this issue.

My favorite is simply changing the “Date” Field to a “PlotDate” Field as it will populate with the current date and/or time when the document is plotted or published to either a paper or electronic copy. The other way is to manually updating the Field. Access the enhanced attribute editor by double-clicking the block and then right-clicking the value. Select “Update Field” from the short cut menu to manually update a “Date” Field inside of a block. The Field can also be manually updated by executing AutoCAD’s FIELDUPDATE command.

A:  You can insert the Create Date as a Field under the Date & Time category. Simply pick “CreateDate”, select the example you would like to use or modify it to your liking, and select “OK”. Create Date is supported by the TDCREATE and TDUCREATE system variables and it will not change throughout the file’s existence. So when the Fields in you drawing are updated to current information, the Create Date Field will update with them, but the data doesn’t change and neither will the Field.

Download the course documents, review the bonus material, and get involved on the forum.

Find this month’s ATP Course listing here.
Become a registered member of AUGI here.

For those that don’t know, I don’t have years and years of professional experience with Autodesk products. However, here is a shameless self-promotion via a quote by AUGI ATP Coordinator, Ken Leary:

“It’s been my opinion that years of experience in a profession don’t always indicate a person’s ability to quickly learn a program and teach it to others. In fact, I receive emails from people with 20+ years of experience who aren’t nearly as articulate as you are in your email and on your blog.”

I’ll leave you with that, although if you aren’t a member of AUGI, do me a favor and signup here and register for my ATP course.

There are some limitations to Fields, however.  The list of shortfalls includes lack of spell checking ability, text tools within the Express Tools set, and using Fields within drawing files that may be used by someone with AutoCAD 2004 or earlier (otherwise known as making a “round trip” to a version prior to their existence).  There are also some commands in AutoCAD that assist or hurt Fields.  A short list that I’ve compile is as follows:

BURST – will change Fields in attributes to regular text (but will maintain its value)

TXT2MTXT – will change Fields into regular text

TCASE – when used to convert a Field to all uppercase, will convert Fields into regular text

EXPLODE (X) (XPLODE) – will convert a Field to regular text

Find and Replace – will convert a Field to regular text

Replace Field with Text – this is a shortcut menu option that will do exactly what it says

BLOCK – define a block to not be exploded within the dialog box as this will deter converting Fields to text

ATTDEF – use the Preset option in the dialog box to avoid overriding Fields upon insertion within a block

Lastly, there are some instances when Dtext or Mtext is simply a better option than AutoCAD Fields.  Fields are overkill for simple annotation for labels on a drawing.  Also, Dtext or Mtext is your only option when it comes to external references since Fields won’t communicate with drawing files other than the one it’s inserted into.  Essentially, Fields are a very versatile and powerful AutoCAD feature that can be very effective if used correctly.  It is just necessary to consider the small number of limitations and how users could possibly cause them to fail.

Start with a block of any sort that you will later need to annotate the coordinates for.  I’ve started with a standard manhole block that I use as shown below.

Define an attribute with the ATTDEF command.  You may remember this process from the exercise for implementing Fields with a title block.  Define the properties of the attribute you will insert into the drawing.

Select the button to the right of the “Default” attribute area to insert a Field.  Once again, this will take you into the Field dialog box.

While in the dialog box, select “Object” from within the “Objects” category and pick the “Select object” button next to the “Object type” area of the dialog.  This will take you back into the drawing in order to select the desired block to be used.  This can also be an AutoCAD Point, as Josh described in his post.

After selecting the block and back into the dialog box, define all of the properties and formatting to be used with the Field.  You will see in the image below that I have defined the “Position” property, “Decimal” format, and “Y” value (as well as many other variables) in order to display a coordinate location for “Northing”.

In the Attribute Definition dialog box that I previously displayed, you can see that I placed the “N:” prefix in the “Default” area.  The other option in doing this is including the prefix from within the “Additional Format” dialog box as shown below.  However, doing both will result in multiple prefixes and doesn’t bode well.

Select “OK” from the Field dialog to finish inserting the Field and “OK” from the Attribute Definition dialog to return to the drawing. Below is the finished result of the Field once it has been regenerated.

You will see the Tag that you defined displayed and without the Field background.  This will not display with the coordinate value or the Field displayed until it has been inserted as a block as I’ll describe later.  Below, you will see the additional attributes that I defined using the same process with the “X” value used for “Easting” and “Z” value used for “TopCasting”.

You will probably start noticing how this could be perceived as useful in your drawings.  This is especially true if you are using a program such as Civil 3D that can associate point descriptions with a block library to insert specific blocks in point locations, essentially doing all the work for you once it has been set up.

Moving right along, let’s WBLOCK the attributes and the block out into its own drawing file.  Although this is a common practice, I have documented the process in the image below.

The next step is to insert the block into the drawing, or any drawing thereafter now that you have created reusable content.

In the image below, you will see the finished product of this exercise.  Notice that the tags are gone and the default values defined in the block are displayed, which includes the Fields.  For this to happen without an Edit Attributes dialog displayed for every insertion, make sure you check the “Preset” option under the “Mode” area of the Attribute Definition dialog box.

You can have multiple copies of this block in the same drawing, and because of the use of attributes and Fields, they will all display their unique coordinate value.  As always, there are many more options available using AutoCAD Fields with blocks and dynamic blocks, but this is a very useful and developmental start to discovering their capabilities.