Saving a Block as a Drawing File

Saving a Block as a Drawing File
You’ve seen that, with little effort, you can create a symbol and place it anywhere in a file. Suppose
you want to use this symbol in other files. When you create a block by using the Block command,
the block exists in the current file only until you specifically instruct AutoCAD to save it
as a drawing file on disk. For an existing drawing that has been brought in and modified, such
as the door, the drawing file on disk associated with that door isn’t automatically updated. To
update the Door file, you must take an extra step and use the Export option on the File menu. Let’s
see how this works.
TIP You can retrieve blocks that are embedded in other drawings by using a feature called the
DesignCenter. See Chapter 27.
Start by turning the Tub and Toilet blocks into individual files on disk:
1. Choose File  Export to open the Export Data dialog box, which is a simple file dialog box.
2. Open the Files Of Type drop-down list, and select Block (*.dwg).
TIP If you prefer, you can skip step 2 and instead, in step 3, enter the full filename including the
.dwg extension, as in Tub.dwg.
3. Double-click the File Name text box, and enter Tub.
4. Click the Save button to close the Export Data dialog box.
5. At the [= (block=output file)/* (whole drawing)] : prompt,
enter the name of the block you want to save to disk as the tub file—in this case, Tub↵. The
Tub block is now saved as a file.
6. Repeat steps 1 through 5 for the Toilet block. Give the file the same name as the block.
TIP AutoCAD gives you the option to save a block’s file under the same name as the original
block or with a different name. Usually, you’ll want to use the same name, which you can do by
entering an equal sign (=) after the prompt.
TIP Normally, AutoCAD saves a preview image with a file. This enables you to preview a drawing file
before opening it. Preview images aren’t included with files that are exported with the File  Export
option or the Wblock command, which is discussed in the next section.