When creating electrical drawings in Autocad 2d, it’s essential to take advantage of the blocks function. Blocks are used for any repeatable element.You create them once, then use them again & again in future drawings. We show you how in our Autocad 2d courses.
A block is a collection of shapes which can incorporate lines, circles, text and hatching which are associated together to form a single complex object. This saves you from drawing or copying the same object over & over again. The screenshot here is a collection of electrical symbols. We have use the Snap to Grid function with a snap of 5mm to assist in the drawing of the various shapes.
Once drawn the shapes have to be converted into blocks by going to Insert > Block > Create Block, and following the dialog box prompts. Once saved blocks like these can now be inserted into a drawing several times, then scaled, rotated and copied. Any part of a drawing can be made into a block, and you can Explode old blocks to edit them. Blocks are also saved within the drawing in which they were created.
Collections of blocks can be stored in drawings called Block Libraries or Symbol Libraries from which they can be inserted into other drawings. As well as creating your own blocks you can access them from Autocad’s Design Centre (in View > Tool Palettes), your own company’s network or the Internet. Blocks can also include Attributes whereby you can store data and enter text. To access commercial symbol libraries on the Internet open the Design Centre and click on the DC Online tab. The Design Centre also allows you to create Favourites folders and search and preview blocks and other properties within your system. You can also find thousands of free blocks by searching on Google. Most companies will allow you to download their own blocks for free. You can them explode them, edit them & resave as your own versions of the blocks.
Note that if a block is inserted from an external (parent) file and that file is later edited, these changes will not update automatically in the child drawing.
The easiest way to insert Blocks into drawings is via the Autocad Design Centre (type DC in the Command Line). You then browse to where the Block is kept, and click & drag it into your drawing. Alternatively, you can go to the Insert tab > Block > Insert.
We explore all these features in full in our Autocad 2d classes. You can see many examples of our clients’ work on our Facebook page.
Other related Autocad 2d Blog Posts:

• Autocad 2d basics
• Autocad 2d introduction
• Autocad 2d drawing
• Autocad 2d workspace
• Autocad 2d isometric