Organizing Objects with Blocks and Groups - Mastering AutoCAD for Mac - page 117

3. Let's try making some changes to the toilet properties. Click the Scale X text box just to
the right of the Scale X label.
4. Enter 1.5 ↵. Notice that the toilet changes in width as you do this.
5. You don't really want to change the width of the toilet, so click in the Scale X text box and
enter 1 ↵ to change the Scale X value back to 1. Press the Esc key to clear the selection.
If a block is created with the Scale Uniformly option turned on in the Define Block dialog
box, you can't scale the block in just one axis as shown in the previous exercise. You can only
scale the block uniformly in all axes.
You've just seen how you can modify the properties of a block by using the Properties Inspector
palette. In the exercise, you changed the X scale of the Toilet block, but you could have just as
easily changed the Y value. You may have noticed other properties available in the Properties
Inspector palette. You'll learn more about those properties as you work through this chapter.
You've seen how you can turn a drawing into a symbol, known as a block in AutoCAD. Now
you'll see how you can use an existing drawing file as a symbol.
Using an Existing Drawing as a Symbol
You need a door into the bathroom. Because you've already drawn a door and saved it as a file,
you can bring the door into this drawing file and use it as a block:
1. In the Tool Sets palette, click the Insert icon, or type I ↵.
2. In the Insert Block dialog box, click the Browse button to open the Select Drawing File
dialog box.
3. This is a standard file browser dialog box. Locate the Door file and double-click it. If
you didn't create a door file, you can use the door file from the Chapter 4 project files
on this topic's companion website.
You can also browse your hard disk by looking at thumbnail views of the drawing files
in a folder.
4. When you return to the Insert Block dialog box, click Insert. As you move the cursor around,
notice that the door appears above and to the right of the cursor intersection, as in Figure 4.5.
5. At this point, the door looks too small for this bathroom. This is because you drew it
3 units long, which translates to 3˝. Metric users drew the door 9 cm long.