Assigning Linetypes to Layers

Assigning Linetypes to Layers
You’ll often want to use different linetypes to show hidden lines, center lines, fence lines, or other
noncontinuous lines. You can assign a color and a linetype to a layer. You then see International
Organization for Standardization (ISO) and complex linetypes, including lines that can be used to
illustrate gas and water lines in civil work or batt insulation in a wall cavity.
AutoCAD comes with several linetypes, as shown in Figure 5.5. ISO linetypes are designed to
be used with specific plotted line widths and linetype scales. For example, if you’re using a pen
width of 0.5 mm, set the linetype scale of the drawing to 0.5 as well. (See Chapter 16 for more information
on plotting and linetype scale.) You can also create your own linetypes (see Chapter 26).



Linetypes that contain text, such as the gas line sample at the bottom of Figure 5.5, use the current
text height and font to determine the size and appearance of the text displayed in the line. A
text height of zero displays the text properly in most cases. See Chapter 10 for more on text styles.
AutoCAD stores linetype descriptions in an external file named Acad.lin, or Acadiso.lin for
metric users. You can edit this file in a text editor like Notepad to create new linetypes or to modify
existing ones. You’ll see how this is done in Chapter 26.