You can use AutoCAD’s GROUP command, to give a set of selected objects a name. You can use groups when you need to manipulate the same set of objects over and over again, or when you need to duplicate a set of objects for use in several locations in your drawings. Groups are particularly useful for managing sets of objects which may need to exist on the same layer but are components of different parts. For example, an interior designer may elect to put all the objects that comprise a desk and chair set into a single group, so he or she can move and copy them as a unit, and still edit them if required. Contrast this with blocks, which not only let you create named symbols that you can place in your drawings but which also lets you collect text based information in your symbols using special text objects called attributes. Groups do not contain attribute definitions themselves, but can contain blocks which contain attributes.

Creating a Named Group

1. From the tools menu, choose Object Group.
2. Enter Office1 in the Group Name box as shown in Figure 1.
3. Select the New button.
4. Select the components of the office layout as shown in Figure 2.
5. Press ENTER to indicate that you don’t want to add any more objects to this group.
6. Choose OK to exit this dialog box.

Tips

Tip: If a group is selectable, selecting any element of the group will select the entire group. If a group is not selectable, then selecting an element of the group will select just that element.

Tip: To change the Selectable status of an object, From the Tools menu choose Group, select the group, then select the Selectable Button in the Change Group area.

To locate a group in the drawing, select the group name from the dialog box, and then click the Highlight button. The objects that make up the group will highlight on screen.

Objects within a group can be moved by using grips. Text entities within a group can be edited with the ddedit command. Attributes contained in blocks within a group can be edited with the ddatte command.

To make any edits to objects within a group other than moving them with grips, you must first make the group Unselectable. Do this by clicking on the group name, and then clicking on the Selectable button at the bottom right of the dialog box. The "Yes" next to the group name will change to "No". Now the objects within the group can be completely edited individually until the Selectable button is clicked again, changing the Selectable status back to "Yes".

When you copy a group, the new group is initially an anonymous group and will not show up in the dialog box until you click the Include Unnamed checkbox as shown in Figure 4.

Groups can be renamed by clicking on the group name, entering a new name in the Group Name field, and then clicking the Rename button as shown in Figure 5.

Objects can belong to more than one group.

To find out the name of a group to which an object(s) belongs, click on the Find Name button, and then pick an object. A message box will list all the groups to which the object belongs.

To remove objects from a group, select the group name in the dialog box, then click on the Remove button. Select the objects to remove.

To add objects to a group, select the group name in the dialog box, then click on the Add button. Select the objects to add.

Groups can include a description.

To get rid of a group, and free the objects contained therein, select the group name in the dialog box, then click on the Explode button.

Please send e-mail to:
Brian Harder. at bkharder@worldnet.att.net