Creating Drawing Titles in AutoCAD: A Step-by-Step Guide

We have been working on our title block file and our title block text file. It is now time to begin working on our drawing title area, which is the image that's below the actual graphics. When we were working on the title block, we positioned the title block at 0,0 so that it would come in appropriately within paper space.

When we end up inserting our drawing title 1 file into the paper space environment of the deliverable sheet file, we will end up popping it in right here. The scoop, though, is that in this example, we have one drawing title here. There will be other occasions when we will have a drawing title here and another drawing title here.

So, when we do the drawing title, we will want to have the bottom left corner of the drawing title be at 0,0 within its source file so that we can then selectively position it within the title block itself. So, let's all go File, New. Let's use a template and let's save the file with the name VDCI Drawing Title 1. So, VDCI Drawing Title 1, Save, and I'll overwrite the file.

Now, what's going on is I don't have a clue how big this drawing title needs to be. I can tell from the geometry that it's half an inch tall, but I don't know how long it needs to be. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to xref attach the title block into model space and use the title block as the overlying parameters for my block.

So, I'm going to go Reference Attach. I'm going to slide down and bring in my title block, and I will pop it in as an attachment at 0,0. So, there it is. I'm going to end up drawing the rectangle that's right here, but it needs to be on the right layer.

Learn AutoCAD

• Nationally accredited
• Create your own portfolio
• Free student software
• Learn at your convenience
• Authorized Autodesk training center

Learn More

Home tab, go to New Layers, right button, New Layer, A-TTLB. Again, it's a title block related kind of information, so it will be on the title block layer. I make it my current layer, and its color will be 120.

I'm going to draw a line from the end of here to the end of here, and so that line that I've drawn represents the bottom dimension for my drawing title. So, I only needed to xref the title block in to get the length of that line. So, I'm going to get the title block out of there.

Again, I do not want to erase the xref. I need to detach the xref. So, I go to the Insert tab, Reference Attach, Detach over here.

Use the xref manager. I will choose the title block, right button, detach it, close it, save. Now, if I were to draw a line from 0,0, you can see that 0,0 is down here.

If I were to type the word base, you can see that the base point for the drawing is 0,0. So, the base point for the drawing is at 0,0 over here. The end of my geometry is up here. If I were to, for example, draw a line from 0,0 to the end of there, you can see that the geometry starts there, the base point is there, and so if I were to say Insert VDCI Drawing Title 1 into another drawing, that here's the base point, here's the beginning of the geometry, everything would be off.

So, what I need to do is I'm going to go to Erase, erase that little line out that I drew, but I'm going to move the line from the end of there to 0,0. So, again, now the base point of the drawing and the left end of the line are at 0,0. This drawing title is half an inch wide. I'm going to say Offset by half an inch, pick and go up. I'm going to draw a line from the end to the end and a line from the end to the end.

I'm going to zoom into this area and I will offset. I look at the prompt, it says half an inch. I hit ENTER to accept it.

I pick and go to the left, Enter, Control-S to save. So, now we have the geometry drawn for our drawing title. What we need to do next is to start populating with our attribute information.

So, the order in which the information is going to be presented will be the drawing label, the drawing name, and the scale. So, I'm going to first begin drawing a line from the end to the end, and I'm going to end up positioning my attribute so that it is middle center aligned on that angled line. So, I'll go to Insert.

I'm going to say Define Attribute. I'm just going to call it Drawing Label. My prompt will be Drawing Label.

Now, in this example, I'm going to leave my default value blank. When we were working on the tbtxt file, we purposely gave it a default value because there was nothing in that drawing other than the attributes themselves. But, this drawing contains line work.

If ever we want to update an attribute value after we have inserted it, we only need to double click on the geometry of the drawing that includes the attribute and that will call up the Attribute Edit dialog box. So, Drawing Label. Drawing Label.

Default value. Just leave it blank. Justification will be Middle Center.

I'm going to let this be Text02. Specify Insertion Point on Screen. The height here wants to be a quarter of an inch high.

I'm going to go OK and pop it in at the midpoint of this line. I will erase out the angled line and CTRL S to save. Now, this drawing label is in my way because I need to start working on the stuff that is over here.

So, I'm going to move it down by a set value, and I'm going to move it down by an inch because that's something that I can remember. So, I'm going to say Move. Choose the text.

Enter. Arbitrary Base Point. Ortho 1. And move it down an inch.

The next thing I'd like to work on will be the name of the drawing itself. So, I'm going to create a new attribute called Drawing Name. Insert tab.

Define Attribute. Drawing-Name. Take off my case sensitivity.

Drawing Name. Again, I'm going to keep the default value blank. My justification will be top right.

My height will be an eighth of an inch. My text style will be text 01. So, again, I have my height is an eighth of an inch.

My style is text 01. Top right. Specify on screen.

1. I'm going to pop it in right there. I now would like to go on and position my scale.

So, again, Define Attributes. Scale. Take off caps lock.

Scale. Default value. Leave it blank.

My alignment will now be bottom right. Text 01. Eighth of an inch.

Specify on screen. OK. And pop it in at the end of there.

What I need to do, though, now is to move this stuff a little bit. So, I'm going to say move this guy down. Ortho 1. One sixteenth of an inch.

Move this guy up. I'm going to say one thirty-second of an inch. I said one thirty-second of an inch because I was aware that there had been a space below that.

What I'm now going to do is I'm going to move them to the left. So, I will say Move. These guys to the left.

One sixteenth of an inch. Control S to save. Now, what's going to happen is that we are going to end up having different scale values in here.

Sometimes it's going to be a quarter of an inch. Sometimes it's going to be an eighth of an inch. A sixteenth of an inch.

A thirty-second of an inch. You know, lots of different options. So, what I need to do is I need to figure out where I need to end up moving this attribute so that I will always have the appropriate amount of space for a potential value when I put it in there.

So, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go over to Single Line Text. And I'm going to say put some text right here.

The text height an eighth of an inch. Enter. Rotation angle of zero.

And I'm going to come up with what I think is the longest potential scale that I might see. Which might be one dash one over two inch. Space equals one foot zero inches.

Enter. Enter. So, this is a potential value that I might see populated in for this attribute.

So, I'm now going to move that text to the left. And I'm using eyeball at this point. So, what's happening is that I need to end up taking this scale attribute and changing its alignment from being bottom right to being bottom left so that as I fill in the values it will expand from the left and go to the right.

So, I'm going to click on this guy. Do a right button. Go to properties.

And I will choose its justification from being bottom right to being bottom left. Close the properties. Hit escape.

I will now move and enter for move the scale value from here over to there. So, again, now I have my attribute for the scale. I want to end up having, though, the word scale in front of it.

So, here's what I'm going to do. I'll double click on the text. I will hit delete to change the values.

I will type the word scale space colon. Enter. Enter.

So, now I have the word scale there. I'm going to end up saying move this text from the insertion base point of the text to the end of here. I'm then going to move it up 1 16th of an inch and then move it to the left so that I end up having some nice space between the word scale and the attribute for the scale.

Now it's time to move the drawing label up. I'm going to move, do a crossing, choose over the label, pick an arbitrary point, ortho is on, and move it up an inch. Zoom extends, zoom real time.

I will now save the file. So, what I'd like to do next is to see this in my working one file. So, I've again saved this drawing.

I'm going to go back to my working one file and I'm going to say insert. Block insert. Go to browse.

I'm going to slide down. I'm in my CAD 301 folder and I'm going to say choose VDCI drawing title one. I'm going to go open.

I'm going to say though specify insertion point on screen. Scale factor of one. Okay.

You can see that it's dragging in so the bottom left corner is at my crosshairs and I'm going to say bring it in at the end of this line down here. Before I pick though, look over at the attributes over here on the right. Again, I'm going to lose my crosshairs if I somehow point to it, but if you look on the right hand side you can see the word scale that we just put in this drawing title file.

The attributes have not yet been populated. They have the default values of blank, which is why they're not showing up. So, again, looking at the command prompt, I'm inserting drawing title one.

It says where. I'm saying go to the end of the bottom left. Now, you need to look at your prompt because it's now saying what's your drawing label and I'm going to say one.

It's going to say what's the drawing name. I'm just going to type in floor plan and the scale I'm going to say one quarter inch equals one foot zero inches. Enter.

So, you can see now it has been appropriately populated. So, now we have everything that we need to begin working on our no plot view. So, this is a fun exercise.

I hope you enjoy it and I'll see you in a few minutes.