Creating objects in AutoCAD can be tedious. After all it is a direct translation tool from working on the drawing board to working on a computer. When creating either a building or mechanical machine, one needs to create a list of what is needed to build it in the physical world.
For buildings a schedule of sorts is needed to make sure that the correct amount and type/make of doors and windows are ordered and for a mechanical design you need to make sure that the correct amount of nuts and bolts are ordered as well as all the other parts otherwise you might find yourself in a situation where you run over budget and all the profit is spent on a calculation error.
A Bill of Materials (for mechanical design) or Schedule (for building design) is normally put together next to your title block but in AutoCAD how can we accomplish this with minimal effort?
Creating a table in AutoCAD is like working in Microsoft Excel. You are able to quickly draw up all the rows and columns needed for your BOM or door schedule and insert the relevant information.
In these tables you can control the color of the cells as well as the font and the formatting (percentage,currency general etc) just like in Excel. Inserting a block into one of the cells also allows for a preview con so that if you get this list and do not know what the fancy part number or stock code is then you can at least see what the component looks like.
Calculations can also be done but I leave that to the professional software like Microsoft Excel. Below you can see an example of what a BOM or schedule would look like in your AutoCAD layout view.
