Controlling Layer Visibility

Controlling Layer Visibility
I mentioned earlier that you’ll sometimes want to display only certain layers to work with in a
drawing. In this bathroom is a door header that would normally appear only in a reflected ceiling
plan. To turn off a layer so that it becomes invisible, you click the Off button in the Layer Properties
Manager dialog box, as shown in these steps:
1. Open the Layer Properties Manager dialog box by clicking the Layer Properties Manager
button in the Layers control panel.
2. Click the Ceiling layer in the layer list.



3. Click the lightbulb icon in the layer list, next to the Ceiling layer name. The lightbulb icon
changes from yellow to gray to indicate that the layer is off.
4. Click the OK button to exit the Layer Properties Manager dialog box. When you return to the
drawing, the door header (the line across the door opening) disappears because you’ve
made it invisible by turning off its layer.
You can also control layer visibility by using the Layer drop-down list on the Layers control panel:
1. On the Layers control panel, click the Layer drop-down list.
2. Find the Ceiling layer, and notice that its lightbulb icon is gray. This tells you that the layer
is off and not visible.
3. Click the lightbulb icon to make it yellow.
4. Click the drawing area to close the Layer drop-down list; the door header reappears.
Figure 5.4 explains the roles of the other icons in the Layer drop-down list.



NOTE When you start to work with layouts in Chapters 8 and 16, you’ll learn about viewports. A
viewport is like a custom view of your drawing. You can have multiple viewports in a layout, each
showing a different part of your drawing. Layer properties can be controlled for each viewport independently,
so you can set up different linetypes, colors, and layer visibility for each viewport.