The reasoning for creating multiple layouts within your drawing is to reduce the amount of errors or mistakes that can come from multiple drawing files created from just one project. It takes a just a little work to set up your page setups and layouts but once you have them you can use them over and over in multiple new or existing projects/drawings.
The most frustrating issue for a lot of users is when they first open their software they are missing the model and layout tab. If you go down to your lower right corner of the interface, you will right click on the layout icon and click on “Display Layout and Model Tabs”.
You will want to first start out by making some page setups so when you make a new layout tab you can quickly choose from different page setups.
Open your Page Setup Manager you can access this by a few different ways;
- Click on the layout or work tab to make it
active. Then right click on it and click
on “Page Setup Manager…”. - Go to your Application Menu in the upper left
corner or the “A” and the go down to hover over print then click on Page Setup. - At the command line type PAGESETUP
In the Page Setup Manager click on the “New” button you will then need to give this setup a name then click the OK button. Typically this is setup by sheet size or job preferences. In order to always set this up when you make a layout put a check box next to “Display when creating a new layout”.
You will now see the plot dialog box. Here is where you will give this page setup your specifics according to the name you gave it. Once you are finished you will then click the OK button to return to the Page Setup Manager Dialog box. From the Page Setup dialog box you can create as many page setups that you need. Once you are finished making your Page Setups click the Close button.
Now you will go to your layout/work tab and right click on it to set the page setup, you can also at this time rename the layout.
Here are a few things that you will want to setup in your layout(s):
- Boarders
- View Ports
- View Port scale
- Annotation visibility
NOTE: This is a great time to set your annotation visibility. Even if your company doesn’t use this feature of the software it is always best to have the Annotation Visibility turned on in the event that annotative text was used in the project or any files xrefed in. If this setting is off you will not see any text that is annotative. You can turn this on by typing at the command line ANNOALLVISIBLE and set it to 1. (1 is on 0 (zero) is off)
In order to create new layouts with the same setup you will right click on your layout tab and select “Move or Copy…” put a check mark in the create a copy and click OK.
You will now make your new layout tab active by click on it then right click and rename it then change the page setup through the Page Setup Manager.
Now with each tab you create you will have the correct settings.
For future use you can save this file as a template file (.dwt) so that you can utilize these settings in other drawing files.
HOW TO GET YOUR PAGE
SETUP AND LAYOUT SETTINGS INTO A NEW OR EXISTING DRAWING FILE?
You can add your page setups from a template or another drawing file as well as layout settings by right clicking on the layout tab and click on “From Template”.
You can then navigate in the “Select Template From File” dialog box to the drawing file or template that has your page setups.
Once you have selected your file and click the Open button you will then see an “Insert Layout(s)” dialog box showing all your layouts. Select which layout(s) you want to bring into your new project. You can use your shift key to select multiple layouts. Click the OK button and you will now see the layouts.
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