Grouping Objects

Grouping Objects
Blocks are extremely useful tools, but for some situations, they’re too restrictive. At times, you’ll
want to group objects so they’re connected but can still be edited individually.
For example, consider a space planner who has to place workstations in a floor plan. Although
each workstation is basically the same, some slight variations in each station could make the use of
blocks unwieldy. For instance, one workstation might need a different configuration to accommodate
special equipment, and another workstation might need to be slightly larger than the standard
size. Using a block, you would need to create a block for one workstation and then, for each variation,
explode the block, edit it, and create a new block. A better way is to draw a prototype workstation
and turn it into a group. You can copy the group into position and then edit it for each
individual situation without losing its identity as a group. AutoCAD LT offers a different method
for grouping objects. If you’re using LT, skip this exercise and continue with the following section,
“Grouping Objects for LT Users.”
The following exercise demonstrates how grouping works:
1. Save the Bath file, and then open the drawing Office1.dwg from the sample files from the
Sybex web site. Metric users should open Office1-metric.dwg.
2. Use the Zoom command to enlarge just the view of the workstation, as shown in the first
image in Figure 4.9.



5. Click New in the Create Group group, about midway in the dialog box. The Object Grouping
dialog box temporarily closes to let you select objects for your new group.
6. At the Select objects: prompt, window the entire workstation in the lower-left corner
of the plan, and press ↵ to display the Object Grouping dialog box. Notice that the name
Station1 appears in the Group Name box at the top of the dialog box.
7. Click OK. You’ve just created a group.
Now, whenever you want to select the workstation, you can click any part of it to select the
entire group. At the same time, you can still modify individual parts of the group—the desk,
partition, and so on—without losing the grouping of objects.