In all situations where the “CurrentSheetCustom” type is used, they operate the same.  You must define a custom name and format specific to the item you are creating a Field for.  Aside from that, the process of defining a Field within an attribute remains the same.  When you create your custom property name, however, pay very close attention to the exact way you define it.  As we continue, there becomes a big difference between “Designedby” and “Designed By” and “designed by”, where the specific way you create the custom property will need to be duplicated when creating the sheet set template down the line.

Once you have finished defining you “CurrentSheetCustom” Fields, you should end up with something that looks similar to the image below.

You should now have all of the sheet-level information defined with Fields inside of attributes.  Pat yourself on the back, because that is a pretty big task.  Aside from simply defining the attributes and selecting the correct Fields, you have to keep track of your custom properties, set all of your text styles and layers correctly, and make sure everything lines up properly within the title block.  Simply WBLOCK these attributes out and you have created your text block to fill you sheet information in.  To rehash why the attributes need to be in a block, is because attributes-and therefore the Fields within them-cannot be edited through an external reference.  Placing them within a block is a great way of keeping everything organized and easy to insert, though.

My suggestion regarding a detail of this process, though, is to make sure that your title block file starts at the coordinates 0,0 and that your point of insertion for the block you create is also at 0,0 and that you use the same UNITS as you use in your project sheets.  This will make your life much easier when you reference them into your drawing in the future.  Before you ever insert the text block with your Fields, you want to first place your drawing sheets into a sheet set you have already customized to your needs.  You sheets must first be a part of the sheet set, or your Fields will not populate in the way they should.

Let’s go through the process of creating and customizing a Sheet Set Template that will allow you to utilize the Fields you just created.  The first major question that arises in this situation is, “Do you currently use the Sheet Set Manager or have any previously create sheet set files?”  If you do, you can make a copy of it and remove all the sheets contained within it and you have a ready-made sheet set template.  If you don’t, either open up the Sheet Set Manager by typing SHEETSET at the command line or entering Ctrl+4 and selecting “New Sheet Set…” from the drop down menu as shown below.

From here you select “Existing drawings” (If you are setting up this template without a project created or sheets to populate within it, you can choose to omit adding sheets when finished).  Also, once you have your template created and are creating a new sheet set for future projects, you can select “An example sheet set” in order to bypass about two thirds of the steps that are to come.

Select “Next >” in order to progress to the “Sheet Set Details” page.  Define the name of the new sheet set, give a description if needed, choose a location for the .dst file to be stored, and then select “Sheet Set Properties”.  Note that once you have your template set up, you will no longer need to set up sheet set properties in this wizard.

Below you will see the Sheet Set Properties dialog box.  You will now need to select the “Edit Custom Properties” button.

Pick the “Add…” button to define the custom properties that you set up with Fields within the attributes before.

Be sure when you are defining the “Name:” of the custom property, it matches exactly with its corresponding value that you gave it within the Field dialog box.  If you don’t do this, the Fields will not populate correctly.  Also note that the “Default value:” that you give the custom property will be what is displayed in your title block if you haven’t defined the custom property within that specific sheet.  One last task within this dialog is to choose the “Sheet” radio button within the “Owner” area and select “OK”.

As you define all of your Custom Properties, you will see the dialog box track your progress and the details. Select “OK” when you are finished.

After selecting “OK”, you will see a new area within the Sheet Set Properties dialog box containing your Sheet Custom Properties.  As shown in the image below.  Pick “OK” to continue creating your sheet set.

At this point, you can add existing sheets to the set by “Browse…” or just “Next >” to continue without adding.

AutoCAD now gives you the opportunity to review and confirm you work before picking “Finish”.

If you didn’t add sheets in the wizard, you can at any time by right-clicking on the project name add selecting “Import layout as sheet…” and then following the prompts.

Whether you have sheets brought into your set or not, you can begin defining the both the regular and custom sheet set properties for the title block Fields by right-clicking on the project name and selecting “Properties…” from the short cut menu.

Now populate the information to your needs and select “OK”.

You can insert the block containing your Field populated attributes any time after the drawing you are working on has been added to the sheet set.  When you do, you will see a dialog box similar to the one below.

In this dialog box, you can override all of the Fields that you specified in the attributes.  You really, really don’t want to do this because it negates all the effort you put into it.  However, the ability to do this is nice if you are working with another office, a subcontractor for design work, or if someone doesn’t know what a Field is because the attributes in the block still function as attributes and the people that aren’t familiar with Fields can still operate within their normal environment if needed.  Also, if you added the block before associating the sheet with a set, delete the block, purge your drawing of said block, and reinsert it after the sheet is associated.

In the image below, you can see an example of the fruits of your labor.

To some, this may seem like an unnecessary and tedious process to do something that simple blocks and attributes can do.  You may be right, especially if you aren’t using or don’t plan to use the Sheet Set Manager.  However, the unique feature that using Fields in your title block gives you, is that you can edit every one of these items without ever getting into the drawing.  Now imagine how many times you’ve had to open and close all of your drawings in order to change the sheet number or description and how time consuming that was.  That in and of itself makes using Fields in the title block beneficial enough for me.

Stay tuned next week to discover uses of AutoCAD Fields with objects and block in your drawings.

Using AutoCAD Fields within your title blocks and in coordination with the Sheet Set Manager, is arguably one of their best uses.  You probably already know how much time is saved on a project using title blocks that you’ve already set up and using Fields within those setups will push that even further.  First, we need to be on common ground in regard to how to set up a title block template.  Typically, a drawing border and plot stamp are incorporated with the title block, which is then externally referenced into a drawing with the project-level information already filled in.  The sheet-level information is then inserted into the drawing as a block containing attributes to be entered or edited.  The use of Fields in the title block will be much the same, with the exception that Fields will be inserted into the attributes contained within the blocks.

Now that that is taken care of, it is best to start out this technique by using a preexisting title block template that you have.  If you don’t have one developed yet, that’s perfectly fine, but I would speculate that creating a brand new title block using Fields would be much easier after you have a better understanding of how they can be implemented.

There is one more thing before jumping into everything.  Start separating the information within the title block into project-level and sheet-level categories.  This will need to be determined to decide which information goes in the x-ref or the block.  You’ll need to keep in mind during this process attributes can’t be edited through an x-ref.  Likewise, a Field inserted into an attribute cannot acquire information about the current sheet through an x-ref.  The image above displays the information most typically found in a title block.

We are now going to define our title block information in attributes.  It is quite possible to make all of the project-level information in the title block attribute definitions for ease of use in the future.  However I am going to focus on sheet-level information in this lesson, as simply defining an attribute should be pretty basic once you have completed this tutorial.

Let’s start by defining an attribute for the sheet number.  Defining the sheet number attribute with the desired layer and text style current is the best place to start out, but all of this is editable from the properties palette afterward, so it isn’t a must.  Enter “ATTDEF” at the command line.  Once in the Attribute Definition dialog box, begin entering the tag and prompt you wish to display on the block that will be created later.  These areas aren’t that important, but defining them as something easy to communicate and making sure they fit in the title block are key.  Also, don’t use any spaces within the “Tag” area, as AutoCAD will not allow it.  Now either click the button to the right of the “Default” area or right-click and select “Insert Field” from the short-cut menu in order to open the Field dialog box as shown below.

In the Field dialog box, select “CurrentSheetNumber” from the Field names box and the format you would like it to appear.  Pick “OK” to return to the Attribute Definition dialog box.

You’ll now see “####” in the “Default” area, as that is AutoCAD’s placeholder for Field data. Continue through the rest of the dialog box defining the size, orientation, style, and mode of your attribute. Select “OK.”  You should now see something similar to the image below on your screen.

You’ll notice that I chose a tag that would fit into the space provided in the title block.  This is just an extra touch for better usability and communication.  Other attributes in the title block that can be defined in the very same way are “CurrentSheetTitle”, “CurrentSheetDescription”, “Date”, “TimeStamp”, and “FileName”.  The rest of the information will take slightly different steps throughout the way.

Well, this seems like a good stopping point for today.  We need to finish defining the attributes for our sheet-level information, w-block out that information into its own file to be inserted later as a block, create a Sheet Set Manager .dst template incorporating the special features we’ll have in our Fields, and finally create a drawing within the sheet set to reference the title block border and text into.  I told you this one is a doozey, but it pays off dividends once you have it mastered.