January 30, 2012

Set All Your Objects Properties Back to ByLayer

old_fabric_1 I don’t like when I receive AutoCAD drawings with the properties overridden to other than ByLayer. It’s a bit hard to distinguish between layers when people do that. There are many ways to change them back to ByLayer. We can select all objects and set the properties to ByLayer or using Match Properties.

But it will be a problem when it has blocks that also have it’s property overridden. AutoCAD actually has a very handy tool for this purpose: SETBYLAYER. You can type it in command line/ dynamic input or accessing menu modify>change by layer. Don’t ask me where is it in AutoCAD 2010, haven’t found it yet.

You can see that this tool will change Color, Linetype, Lineweight, and Material back to ByLayer. You can change this, of course. For example, you want to change the color and lineweight to bylayer, but don’t want to change the others.

You can also see that this tool can change ByBlock to ByLayer. And you can also change objects inside blocks!

Command: SETBYLAYER
Current active settings: Color Linetype Lineweight Material
Select objects or [Settings]:
Specify opposite corner: 167 found
Select objects or [Settings]:
Change ByBlock to ByLayer? [Yes/No] :
Include blocks? [Yes/No] :
167 object modified.

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  1. Layer 0, ByLayer and ByBlock
  2. AutoCAD Match Properties Settings
  3. Creating New Command in AutoCAD
  4. Using AutoCAD Filter
  5. 10 AutoCAD Layer Tools (You Might) Forgotten

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About Edwin Prakoso

Application Engineer. Jakarta, Indonesia.
5+ years experience as CAD engineering application. Autodesk Revit Architecture 2010 certified professional, and certified CATIA part design specialist. Also have sufficient knowledge about AutoCAD, MicroStation, and Inventor.
If you're in Jakarta and need my assistance, email me at info @ cad-notes.com. Or mention me on twitter @cad_notes

  • Arni Vidar

    You know… the first thought that came to my head was “You’ve got to be f#$%$g kidding me!!!!”

    LOL, I don’t know how many hunreds of hours I’ve spent on this one project, exploding blocks as much as 10 block layers deep, just to be able to set them all to by layer.

    Thank you, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for this tip! :D

    • http://cad-notes.com Edwin Prakoso

      I’m glad you find it useful :) So now you can use that hundreds of hours for something else fun!

  • Arni Vidar

    Hahaha, well, it’s sold hours so I guess it’s not too bad, but those were some really BORING hours. :)

    Thanks again.

  • SiLvia Morrone

    En Acad 2110 se encunatra igual x línea de comandos! y en Modify. =)

  • SiLvia Morrone

    Digo… 2010…