2011

Insert Fields
A field is text that contains instructions to display data that you expect to
change during the life cycle of the drawing.
When a field is updated, the latest data is displayed. For example, the value
of the FileName field is the name of the file. If the file name changes, the new
file name is displayed when the field is updated.
Fields can be inserted in any kind of text (except tolerances), including text
in table cells, attributes, and attribute definitions. When any text command
is active, Insert Field is available on the shortcut menu.
A field for which no value is available displays hyphens (----). For example,
the Author field, which is set in the Drawing Properties dialog box, may be
blank.
Change the Appearance of a Field
The field text uses the same text style as the text object in which it is inserted.
By default, fields are displayed with a light gray background that is not plotted
(FIELDDISPLAY system variable).
Formatting options in the Insert Field dialog box control the appearance of
the text that is displayed. The options that are available depend on the type
of field. For example, the format for date fields includes options for displaying
the day of the week and the time, and the format for named object fields
includes capitalization options.
Edit a Field
A field is part of a text object and it can be edited from a text editor. The easiest
way to edit a field is to double click the text object that contains the field and
then, to display the Insert Field dialog box, double click the field. These
operations are available on the shortcut menus as well.
If you no longer want to update a field, you can preserve the value that is
currently displayed by converting the field to text.
The field expression, consisting of escape characters and a field code, is shown
in the Insert Field dialog box but cannot be edited.
Insert Fields | 733