AutoCAD Design Center

The AutoCAD Design Center is one of the most efficient ways of sharing
information between projects and drawings. This presentation will demonstrate
how different data can be accessed from one drawing and used in your current
drawing, and how to customize the design center for quicker data retrieval.

With AutoCAD Design Center, you can

• Browse the current drawing file content in a familiar tree structure.

• View tables such as blocks and layers, in any drawing file and insert,
attach, or copy and paste the definitions into the current drawing.

• Create shortcuts to drawings, folders, and Internet locations that you

access frequently.

• Find drawing content on your computer and on networked drives

• Control the display of palette contents by switching between large and

small icons, lists and details.

Opening AutoCAD Design Center

• Type ADCENTER or ADC at the command line or hit ctrl-2

• Select the Design Center icon on the Navigation toolbar.

Tree View (Left pane) Palette (right pane)

You can control the size, location, and appearance of AutoCAD DesignCenter.

• Resize AutoCAD DesignCenter by dragging the bar between the palette and
the tree view or by dragging an edge as you would any other window.

• Undock AutoCAD DesignCenter by dragging the area above the toolbar away
from the docking region. You can move DesignCenter anywhere on the
screen and change its width and height with the pointing device.

• Dock AutoCAD DesignCenter by dragging it over the right or left docking

regions of the AutoCAD window until it snaps into the docked position. You
can also dock the DesignCenter window by double-clicking its title bar.

The Design Center Toolbar

The DesignCenter toolbar controls navigation and display of information in the

tree view and the palette.

Load
Displays the Load DesignCenter Palette dialog box. Use Load to navigate to
files on local and network drives or on the Web, and then to select content to
load in the palette. You must use Load to load content from the Web into
DesignCenter.

Up
Displays the contents of the container one level above the current container.

Search
Displays the Find dialog box. You can specify search criteria to locate
drawings, blocks, and non-graphical objects within drawings, and custom
content saved on your desktop.

Favorites
Displays the contents of the Favorites folder in the palette. The Favorites
folder contains shortcuts to items you access often. You can add items to
Favorites by right-clicking an item in either the tree view or palette and
 choosing Add to Favorites. To delete an item from Favorites, use the Organize
Favorites option on the Favorites shortcut menu.

Note: AutoCAD automatically adds the Design Center folder to Favorites. This folder
contains drawings with discipline-specific symbols that you can insert in drawings.

Home
Displays the contents of a specified “Home” folder in the palette. This can be
modified by clicking over any folder in the tree view and selecting “Set as
Home”

Tree View Toggle

Displays and hides the tree view. Hide the tree view if you need more space
in your drawing area. When the tree view is hidden, you can use the palette
to navigate to containers and to load content. The Tree View Toggle button is
not available while you're using the History list in the tree view.

Preview
Toggles display of a preview of the selected item in a pane below the palette.
If there is no preview image saved with the selected item, the Preview area is
empty.

Description
Toggles display of a text description of the selected item in a pane below the
palette. If a preview image is also displayed, the description is displayed
below it.

Views
Provides different display formats for the content loaded in the palette. You
can select a view from the Views list or click the Views button repeatedly to
cycle through the display formats. The default view varies for the type of
content currently loaded in the palette.

Large Icon
Displays the names of the loaded content in large icon format.
Small Icon
Displays the names of the loaded content in small icon format.
List View
Displays the names of the loaded content in a list.
Detail View
Displays additional information about the loaded content. You can sort
the items by name, size, type, and other properties, depending on the
type of content loaded in the palette.

The same navigation and display options are available on a shortcut menu.
Right-click in the DesignCenter palette.

Tabs
Open Drawings
Displays all drawings currently open in the AutoCAD session, including
drawings that are minimized.
History
Displays a list of the files (20) that you opened most recently in DesignCenter. With the
history displayed, right-click a file to display information about the file or to delete the file
from the History list.

Folders
Displays only folders on the palette side of the Design Center.

DC Online
The DesignCenter Online provides access to thousands of symbols, manufacturers'
product information, and content aggregators' sites.

Content is not available in all languages, and some available content may not be offered
in locally applicable units. Additional DesignCenter Online content is added regularly.

Design Center works with

Blocks
Dimstyles
Layers
Layouts
Linetypes
Tablestyles
Textstyles
Xrefs

Drag and Drop

You can drag Objects from Design Center directly into your drawing file.

With a left click and drag you insert the BLOCK directly.

You can Double-Click to open the Insert Dialog Box.

When you right click and drag you get the option to use the INSERT dialog box.

In fact depending on what you drag and how you drag it you get differing dialogs

Drag a dwg file9Insert as Block or Attach as Xref.

Drag a layer 9 Add the layers or Add the layers and open the Layer Dialog Box.
 Drag an Xref – You can Place Xref (attach and drag- no dialog box) or Attach
Xref (dialog box)

Drag a Dimension Style – You can place dimension styles from other drawings
into your current drawing.

Drag a Line type – You can place line types from other drawings into your current
drawing.

Drag a Text Style – You can place dimension styles from other drawings into
your current drawing.

Drag a Table Style – You can place Table styles from other drawings into your
current drawing.

Drag a Layout – You can place layouts from other drawings into your current
drawing. This is particularly handy when trying to restore layouts
from corrupted drawings.

Working with Hatch Patterns

To drag hatch patterns into your drawing

1. From the Tools menu, choose AutoCAD DesignCenter.

2. Browse to “G:\CADD Standards\Hatch” or

“G:\CADD Standards\Hatch\pats” in the tree view.

3. Then double-click any *.pat file to open it and display the hatch
 patterns.

4. In the palette, select a hatch pattern.

5. Drag the selected pattern to an object in your drawing.

Note: If the hatch pattern scale is too large or small, an error message is
displayed. You can adjust the scale for any hatch pattern by double-
clicking the hatch pattern to display the Boundary Hatch dialog box.

6. The pickbox of the crosshairs shows the hatch pattern you are
dragging.

You can also right click on a pattern to get the BHATCH command.

Working with Layouts

Using DesignCenter, you can drag a layout with its objects from any
drawing into the current drawing.

When you use DesignCenter to insert a layout into a drawing, a new

layout is created that includes all of the paper space objects, definition
tables, and block definitions from the source layout.

You can delete unneeded paper space objects.

To eliminate any unnecessary definition table information from the new

layout, use the PURGE command.
To insert a layout using AutoCAD DesignCenter

1. From the Tools menu, choose AutoCAD DesignCenter.

2. In the tree view, find the drawing that contains the layout you want to
reuse.

3. Double-click the drawing name to expand the options beneath it.

4. Select the Layouts icon to display the individual layouts in the palette.

5. Use one of the following methods to insert the layout into the current
drawing:

• Drag the layout icon from the palette to the drawing area.
• Select a layout in the palette, right-click, and choose Add Layout(s)
from the shortcut menu.
• Double-click the layout in the palette.

Opening a drawing file directly from Design Center

1. From the Tools menu, choose AutoCAD DesignCenter.

2. In the tree view, find the drawing that you want to open.

3. Right click on it and choose: “Open in Application Window”

Bookmark and Retrieve Frequently-Used Content

AutoCAD DesignCenter provides a solution to finding content that you need to

access quickly on a regular basis. Both the tree view and the palette include
options that activate a folder called Favorites. The Favorites folder can contain
shortcuts to content on local or network drives as well as in Internet locations.

To add to the Favorites list:

1. From the Tools menu, choose AutoCAD DesignCenter.

2. If necessary, toggle on the tree view in DesignCenter by selecting the

Tree View toggle button in the DesignCenter toolbar.
 3. Choose the Desktop button in the DesignCenter toolbar to display the
directory structure of your local and network drives.

4. Browse to a location on the hard drive or network drive for the shortcut.

5. Right-click on the folder, and choose Add to Favorites.

When you select a drawing, folder, or another type of content and choose Add to
Favorites, a shortcut to that item is added to the Favorites folder. The original file
or folder doesn't actually move; in fact, all the shortcuts you create are stored in
the Favorites folder. The shortcuts saved in the Favorites folder can be moved,
copied, or deleted using Windows Explorer.

To set the default startup directory for Design Center:

1. Type “adcnavigate” on the command line and press ENTER.
2. Enter the default startup location.
3. Press ENTER.

To create a block library drawing

1. Begin a new drawing.

2. Define a block.

3. Repeat step 2 for as many related block definitions as you want to

make.

4. Save the drawing using a name appropriate for a library drawing.

5. Access the blocks and drag them when needed directly from Design
Center

Search

Searches for content such as drawings, hatch patterns, and blocks.

Look For
Specifies the type of content to search for. The content type you specify
determines which tabs are displayed in the Find dialog box and the search
fields it provides. The Date Modified and Advanced tabs are displayed
only when the Drawings option is selected in Look For.

In
Specifies a search path name. To enter multiple paths, separate them with
semicolons. Use Browse to select a path from a tree view list.
Browse
Displays a tree view in the Browse for Folder dialog box, in which you can
specify the drives and folders to search.

Search Subfolders
Includes subfolders in the search path.

Search Now
Starts the search based on criteria you specify.

Stop
Stops the search and displays the accumulated results in the Search
Results panel.

New Search
Clears the Search For the Name box and places the cursor in the box.

Search Results Panel

Displays the results of the search in resizable columns. Double-click an
item to load it into DesignCenter.

Variables to Check

INSUNITS - Specifies a drawing-units value for blocks or images inserted from

DesignCenter. INSUNITS applies to blocks and images only, and
does not affect other content, including drawings.

BLOCKICON - Use this command to generate icons for blocks created with an
earlier release of AutoCAD. You can enter a series of comma-
delimited block names or wild-card characters. For example, enter
b1,?2, to specify that block B1 and all two-character blocks ending
with 2 should be updated. After you enter the block names,
AutoCAD displays a message describing the process as it
proceeds. Press ESC at any time to stop.

ADCENTER – Opens Design Center

ADCCLOSE – Closes Design Center

ADCNAVIGATE - Controls the AutoCAD DesignCenter file name, folder, and

network paths
At the prompt, you can enter a path in any of the following formats:
• Directory paths: c:\program files\autocad 2008\sample
• Directory paths and a file name: c:\project files\electrical\circuit2.dwg
• UNC network paths: \\server1\campus_project