Datasheet

Don’t Use the Name Standard
The name Standard is used as a default name for the text style, dimension style, table style,
and probably a few other things in AutoCAD. It’s misleading, because it’s a standard only
in the sense that it always shows up in an AutoCAD environment. Never does the name
represent a real standard in any discipline. To avoid a nasty surprise down the road, build
a template file that banishes Standard as a name for anything.
I suggest naming text styles for the fonts they use. If you set their height to 0, you won’t
need all those Romans48 type names; Romans will work fine. For dimensions, give the
styles names that represent their disciplines, or the name of the client. For tables, use names
that represent their use. Or, use the names of your favorite pets—just don’t call anything
Standard.
Be Cautious When Using REFEDIT
REFEDIT is used to edit block definitions or external reference drawings; it replaces the
originals if you tell it to. If you click Save Reference Edits, you’d better mean it. You can
protect a drawing that will be used as an external reference (XRef) from being edited with
REFEDIT by setting the variable XEDIT to 0 before saving the intended XRef. Before
AutoCAD 2006, double-clicking a BLOCK insertion opened REFEDIT. Users who didn’t
understand what REFEDIT was would close the resulting toolbar and keep working.
Unfortunately, they were still reference-editing without knowing it, and eventually they
got the not in the working set error. If you get this error, type REFCLOSE at the command line.
Beware When Moving or Renaming Files
Don’t change filenames or locations for hyperlinks, XRefs, XRef images, menu files, icon
BMP files, or other support files unless you know how to redefine the path used to locate
them. Otherwise, you’ll get blank rectangles for images and a line of text for XRefs, your
menus won’t load, many commands won’t work, or you’ll see clouds or questions marks
on your custom toolbars. Using the Relative Path option can help for images and XRefs.
THE PROBLEM WITH STANDARD
Every AutoCAD drawing uses Standard as the default name for styles. At some point, you may
insert your drawing into another host drawing. If you never bothered to rename the style you
use, you’ll have a conflict in the host drawing between its dimension style and yours. Only
one of the two styles named Standard can win this fight. Will it be your drawing, or the draw-
ing into which it’s inserted? Hint: Your drawing will lose this fight, and all your dimensions will
look awful if you explode the resulting block.
10 ■ chapter 1: AutoCAD Productivity
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