Exercise # 3.

Properties Toolbar

Object properties in AutoCAD allow you change the objects line type, line weight, and color. In engineering
drafting, it is important to distinguish elements of the drawing from one another. One way to this is by changing
its color or line weight.

The following figure is the object properties toolbar:

The first section identifies the color of the object, the middle section tells the line type of the object, and the
third section tells the line weight of the object. The fourth section will not be included in this discussion.

To change an objects properties, you simply select an object and change its properties from the properties
toolbar. The following are procedures in changing an objects properties.

1. Select an object by clicking on it or by window select.

Once the object has been selected it should display dashed lines with blue squares on two endpoints and on
the middle. Window select allows you to select more than one object at a time. You do this by clicking on
one corner without releasing the left mouse button and then moving your mouse at the opposite corner and
releasing the button.
 2. Change the object properties by clicking one of the buttons from the properties toolbar. It will drop
down and display an option, this is called a drop down menu. In this case it displays several colors.

3. Select from the list and the color of the object will change to the selected color.
4. Press ESC from the keyboard to unselect the object.

Loading Line Type

If you notice, the line type drop down menu has very few line types. This is the default line type that are loaded
in an AutoCAD file. Line type will take up some memory, therefore we only load what we need from hundreds
of line types.

1. Click the button of the line type section on the properties toolbar and select other from the drop
down menu.

2. AutoCAD will now display the linetype manager, wherein you can load or edit the line types of your
file. The following displays the linetype manager. Click load to insert new line type.
3. You will be presented by a window with list of several line types. Select from the list by clicking on it
and then click ok. Lets try to select HIDDEN from the list.

4. Now, we will have the new line type listed in the linetype manager. click show details from the linetype
manager to edit the line type global scale.

Sometimes, we have to change the linetype scale to make it visible. IF we have a very big drawing with
very little linetype scale, then the line might not display properly.

5. This time, we will have the HIDDEN linetype displayed in the linetype dropdown menu.