AutoCAD Layers

Happy New Year to all far and wide!! I hope everyone has a fantastic and exciting 2018.

This year I am kicking off chatting about AutoCAD Layers. I teach AutoCAD down here in sunny Cape Town, South Africa for Micrographics and for beginners it can be a bit of a challenge for both the self-taught and new learners that layers are the way to go for managing a CAD drawing efficiently.

I get this question often “But why can’t I just use layer zero and then just change the colours through the property palette?”.

I just want to say “Because you just can’t!!!!” but alas that is not the right thing to say.

So…why should we use layers? Simple. It was created to help users easily manage their drawing. From turning visibility of certain objects in a drawing (walls, doors, windows) to easily changing the colour and the line thickness or line weight with just a few clicks.

Visibility – Doing a door count is easy using layers. How many doors are there? Turn off the the layer and start counting. Easy peasy lemon squeezy!!

Colour – You want to change a colour? Without layers, you would individually select each line and circle and then go to your properties palette and select a colour.  You then realise that the colour is wrong and your lines and circles have been deselected. That was 2000 lines….oh dear! Let start again… With layers you change the colour, and everything previews nicely and changes. You make a mistake, no problem. Just change the layer colour again.

The same goes for line thickness and line weight. So that is my quick overview on how AutoCAD layers can make your life easier.