Want to learn more about AutoCAD tool palettes? Deleting unnecessary tools and palettes is a good place to start! If you right-click on a tool palette tab, you can move it up or down as well as rename or delete that entire palette. Remember: Where you right-click matters! For example, if you right-click on a tool you can do things like delete or rename that tool. The real value of tool palettes comes when you customize them to meet your needs.īy now I’m sure you see that customizing the AutoCAD tool palette really is easy-especially if you’re a right-clicking machine. When you select a palette from the menu, the tool palette tabs scroll up or down accordingly.Īs I said, out of all these palettes and tools there are likely only a few that apply to your particular workflow. In fact there are so many palettes you can’t see all the tabs at one time! Fortunately, however, you can right-click on the tab edges at the bottom of the tool palette to display a menu of all the tabs for easy navigation. There are palettes with hatches, tables, lights, cameras, and more. Some of the blocks are even “dynamic” as indicated by the lightning bolt icon. And there’s a Constraint palette with tools for applying parametric constraints.Īnd there are several palettes with blocks, including both imperial and metric versions. There is, for example, a Modeling palette with just a few of the tools you might use for 3D modeling. Rather, they’re intended to inspire you with ideas and examples. It’s unlikely that most of them are particularly useful to you, and they’re not intended to be. Each tab is a palette, itself with multiple tools. When you open Tool Palettes-accessed from the View ribbon tab or the TOOLPALETTES command (TP alias)-you’ll see several tabs. If you move your block library (source files), the links in the tool palette will break.Ĭustomizing the AutoCAD tool palette: A bit more context Notice the Source file location in the tool properties. Note: It’s important to realize that blocks in your tool palette are links to the definitions in a drawing. It doesn’t get any easier than this, right? You can right-click on each of the tools to modify any of the individual properties, such as name, scale, and even the layer on which you want it inserted! Now you have quick and easy access to your favorite blocks right from the tool palette. Choose Create Tool Palette from the right-click menuĪ new tool palette with the folder or DWG name that you right-clicked on is automatically created and, like magic, it includes tools for all the blocks!.Right-click on the folder or DWG file that contains your block definitions.Navigate to your existing block library.We’ll be using AutoCAD DesignCenter to quickly create a new tool palette of your existing blocks so, if you haven’t already, now would be a good time to read last week’s Tuesday Tip on AutoCAD DesignCenter. You probably already have a block library (on your local or network drive) that’s organized into folders with a bunch of small DWG files that you use for blocks, or DWG files with many block definitions in them, or a combination of both. It’s so easy I bet you’ll want to try it right now! Customizing the AutoCAD tool palette is so easy and powerful, I could teach an entire class on it-and I have! But for today’s Tuesday Tip, I’ll just share my favorite method for creating a custom tool palette of blocks. The real value of tool palettes, an AutoCAD feature since the 2004 release, becomes evident when you customize them to meet your needs.
Navigate to the tool palette file locations section and expand the + then delete the path that is shown that box. Right click in the command area and choose Options. You can add any command from AutoCAD to a palette, creating quick access to all of your favorites and shortcuts. A tool palette is a free-floating tab that you can bring up on screen and keep active while you work in your drawing, so you have quick access to common symbols, commands, and most any other tool you need to complete the design. Notes: Tool Palettes provide the shortest quickest way to increase productivity without programming. How do you restore the default path location of tool palettes in AutoCAD. You have just loaded AutoCAD and you have no tool palettes available or the path has changed.