Tool palettes are tabbed areas within the Tool Palettes window that provide an efficient method for organizing, sharing, and placing blocks and hatches. Tool palettes can also contain custom tools provided by third-party developers.
Insert Blocks and Hatches Using Tool Palettes
Tool palettes are tabbed areas within the Tool Palettes window. You can place blocks and hatches that you use often on a tool palette. When you need to add a block or a hatch to a drawing, drag it from the tool palette onto your drawing.
Blocks and hatches that reside on a tool palette are called tools, and several tool properties including scale, rotation, and layer can be set for each tool individually.
Blocks that are placed with this method often must be rotated or scaled after they are placed. You can use object snaps when dragging blocks from a tool palette, however grid snap is suppressed during dragging.
Scale Blocks Automatically
When a block is dragged from a tool palette into a drawing, it is scaled automatically according to the ratio of units defined in the block and defined in the current drawing. For example, if the current drawing uses meters as its units and a block is defined using centimeters as its units, the ratio of the units is 1 m/100 cm. When the block is dragged into the drawing, it is inserted at 1/100 scale.
Change Tool Palette Settings
The options and settings for tool palettes are accessible from shortcut menus in different areas on the Tool Palettes window. These settings include
You can dock the Tool Palettes window on the right or left edge of the application window. Press the CTRL key to prevent docking as you move the Tool Palettes window.
Tool palette settings are saved with your AutoCAD profile.
Control Tool Properties
You can change the insertion properties or pattern properties of any tool on a tool palette. For example, you can change the insertion scale of a block or the angle of a hatch pattern.
To change these tool properties, right-click a tool and click Properties on the shortcut menu. Then you change the tool's properties in the Tool Properties dialog box. The Tool Properties dialog box has two categories of properties— the Insert or Pattern properties category, and the General properties category.
Update the Icon for a Tool
Icons in tool palettes are not automatically updated if the block or hatch changes. If you change a block or hatch definition you can update its icon in a tool palette. In the Tool Properties dialog box, change the entry in the Source File field for blocks or the Pattern name field for hatches, and then change the entry back again. This forces an update of the icon for that tool.
Alternatively, you can delete the tool and then replace it using DesignCenter.
Specify Overrides for Tool Properties
In some cases, you may want to assign specific property overrides to a tool. For example, you may want a hatch to be placed automatically on a pre-specified layer, regardless of the current layer setting. This feature can save you time and reduce errors by setting properties automatically when creating certain objects.
The Tool Properties dialog box provides fields for each potential property override.
Layer property overrides affect color, linetype, lineweight, plot style, and plot. Layer property overrides are resolved as follows:
Customize Tool Palettes
You can create new tool palettes using the Properties button on the title bar of the Tool Palettes window. Add tools to a tool palette with the following methods:
Note: For block tools on tool palettes, the source drawing files must always be accessible. If a source drawing file is moved to a different folder, you must modify the block tool that references it by right-clicking the block tool and, in the Tool Properties dialog box, specifying the new source file folder.
Once tools are placed in a tool palette, you can rearrange them by dragging them within the tool palette.
A tool palette tab can be moved up and down the list of tabs from the tool palette shortcut menu, or from the Tool Palettes tab of the Customize dialog box. Similarly, you can delete tool palettes that you no longer need. Tool palettes that are deleted are lost unless they are first saved by exporting them to a file. You can control the path to your tool palettes on the Files tab in the Options dialog box. This path can be to a shared network location.
Note: If a tool palette file is set with a read-only attribute, a lock icon displays in a lower corner of the tool palette. This indicates that the tool palette cannot be modified beyond changing its display settings and rearranging the icons.
Save and Share Tool Palettes
You can save and share a tool palette by exporting it or importing it as a tool palette file. You import and export a tool palette from the Tool palettes tab on the Customize dialog box. Tool palette files have an .xtp file extension.
The default path for tool palette files is set on the Files tab of the Options dialog box under Tool Palettes File Locations.
Note:Â If a tool palette file is set with a read-only attribute, a lock icon displays in a lower corner of the tool palette. This indicates that the tool palette cannot be modified beyond changing its display settings and rearranging the icons. |