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AutoCAD Productivity

To or From the Current Layer

by Michael Beall

From: AutoCAD Productivity Articles #133
Originally published: April 2014

There are two really handy buttons on the Layers panel—Make Object's Layer Current and Change to Current Layer.

Make Object's Layer Current

Make currentUse this command to set the current layer by selecting an object that's on the layer you want to be current.

Ex: You just added the topographic lines to the site plan on the TOPO layer, and now you need to add more notes to the NOTES layer. Click Make Object's Layer Current, click on some text that's on the NOTES layer, and that becomes the current layer.

Change to Current Layer

Change to currentThis is a great editing feature when you need to move objects from one layer to another.

Ex: The NOTES layer is current as you add text to the drawing and discover text objects that are a different color. So you hover over the object to display the rollover tip where you see it's on the wrong layer. Click Change to Current Layer, then select the errant objects and press [Enter] to change them over to the NOTES layer that happens to be current.

See all the articles published in April 2014

Michael's Corner

Between 2003 and 2016, Michael Beall (and one or two guests) wrote almost 600 articles for CADTutor. The focus of these articles is AutoCAD productivity, and although some of them are now more than a few years old, most remain relevant to current versions of AutoCAD. The article above is just one example. Check out Michael's Corner for a full listing.

Tip of the Day

Offset to the current layer

Offset command Layer optionWhen you use the offset command, the new object always ends up on the same layer as the source object. That's the default option but you can have objects offset to the current layer.

Start the Offset command, Modify ❯ Offset from the pull-down menu or OFFSET from the command line. At the prompt, enter L for "Layer" and then C for "Current". Now, each time you use Offset, objects will be created on the current layer.

To set Offset back to the default, use the same sequence but enter S for "Source".

Today's tip is by JBullseye74

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