Creating a solid foundational template: Introduction to

template creation

You will bring in content to a template using

several methods, with a recommendation
for using the Design Center.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the methods for bringing

content into a template.
• Recognize problems to avoid.
• Bring content into a template using
the Design Center.
The completed exercise

1. Start a new drawing using a blank template or

use the supplied acad.dwt file.

2. To use the drag-and-drop method of bringing

content into the template, go to the Window’s
File Explorer, click the file(s) you want to bring
in, and drag the file(s) onto the AutoCAD
template.

3. Specify an insertion point. Specify the X and Y

factor and a rotation angle. Use ZOOM extents
to see the content in the drawing. Use the
EXPLODE command if you don’t want the
content to be in block format.

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 4. Open the Finished-Grading-Sheet.dwg file.

5. Window around the title block and press Ctrl+C

to copy to the clipboard.

6. Click the acad.dwt template and press Ctrl+V to

paste the title block onto the template.

7. While the drag-and-drop and copy-and-paste

methods work for some projects, the
recommended method is to use the Design
Center because there is no potential for
corruption. To access the Design Center, either
type ADC or go to the View tab > Palettes panel
and click the Design Center button.

8. In the Design Center, expand the Civil.dwt file to

view the contents.

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 9. Click Blocks. Select each North arrow in the
preview window and drag-and-drop them each
onto the template. (Note that you can only
drag-and-drop one at a time.)

10. You can erase the blocks in model space and

they will still be available as reference blocks.
Window around the blocks and erase them. In
the Insert tab, Block panel, click Insert and you
see the blocks are still available as reference
blocks.

11. In the template file, type purge. In the Purge

dialog, the items that are not used in the
drawing file are indicated with a check mark.
Click Purge Checked Items if you want to purge
items.

12. It is useful to run an audit on your file. To do

this, on the template file, type audit and then Y.
Check for errors in the results (Total errors
found and fixed).

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