Overview of Blocks (Concept)

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Overview of Blocks

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Concept

Quick Reference

A block can be composed of objects drawn on several layers with various properties. You can use several methods to create blocks.

A block can be composed of objects drawn on several layers with various colors, linetypes, and lineweight properties. Although a block is always inserted on the current layer, the block reference preserves information about the original layer, color, and linetype properties of the objects that are contained in the block. You can control whether objects in a block retain their original properties or inherit their properties from the current layer, color, linetype, or lineweight settings.

Create Blocks

You can use several methods to create blocks:

Combine objects to create a block definition in your current drawing.
Use the Block Editor contextual tab (when the ribbon is active) or Block Editor (when the ribbon is not active) to add dynamic behavior to a block definition in your current drawing.
Create a drawing file and later insert it as a block in other drawings.
Create a drawing file with several related block definitions to serve as a block library.

You can use PURGE to remove unused block definitions from a drawing.

Dynamic Blocks

A block definition can contain elements that add dynamic behavior to a block, which adds flexibility and intelligence to the geometry. When you insert a block reference with dynamic behavior in a drawing, you can manipulate the geometry of the block reference through custom grips or custom properties, depending on how the block was defined. You can also constrain block geometry.

Annotative Blocks

You can also create annotative blocks. For more information about creating and working with an annotative blocks, see Create Annotative Blocks and Attributes.