

The second method of linetype creation doesn’t require you to create your own linetype definition in the acad.lin file, but does require AutoCAD Express Tools to be installed. Load your new custom linetype, and you’re done! Custom AutoCAD Linetypes with Express Tools If done correctly, you should now be able to load this file using the LINETYPE command. Make sure the text height for that style is set to 0 in the drawing so that the text height is controlled by the height setting in the linetype (s=.1) and the LTSCALE, rather than a static value.Īt the bottom of the acad.lin file is space to add your own custom linetype. Choose a text style that exists in all of your drawings, such as the Standard text style. The most difficult part about this is determining the horizontal and vertical offsets, but even those are not too hard to figure out by experimenting and giving your linetype a few test runs.

*HOT_WATER_SUPPLY,Hot water supply - HW - HW - HW -Ī.5,-.2,-.2 This bracket portion defines the linetype text, text style, text size, rotation angle, horizontal offset, and vertical offset. Linetypes with text become a bit more complicated by including a portion specific to the text in brackets. Below you can see how these values relate to the actual linetype. Positive values represent a line of that length, negative values represent a space of that length, and zeroes represent periods.
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First we have a standard letter A to specify the alignment type (always A in AutoCAD linetypes), then a series of values to define the actual pattern. The second line is where it starts to get tricky. The first line consists of a standard asterisk, the linetype name, and a description including a text preview of the linetype. Įvery linetype definition consists of two lines of text. Let’s take a look at one of the existing definitions to see how they work.

The acad.lin file is where the definitions of many of the default linetypes reside. To find the location of this file, at the command line, type (findfile “ acad.lin“ ). The first method consists of adding the definition of your custom linetype to your acad.lin file. If, in the event that you know exactly what linetypes you would like to create yourself, use either of the two methods below to do so. While not too difficult, it tends to be a task many users choose to leave to their company’s CAD manager. As one of the instructors here at CAD Masters, I’d have to say one of my favorite topics to teach is creating custom AutoCAD linetypes.
