Using Layers to Organize Your Drawing - AutoCAD 2011 and AutoCAD LT 2011: No Experience Required - page 280

Two of your layers, A-ROOF and A-WALL-HEAD, still have no objects on them
because these components haven't been drawn yet. You'll draw the headers now.

Drawing the Headers
Most door and window openings don't extend to the ceiling. The portion of the
wall above the opening and below the ceiling is the header . The term comes
from the name of the beam inside the wall that spans the opening. In a floor
plan, wall lines usually stop at the door and window openings, but you need
lines across the gap between jamb lines to show that an opening doesn't extend
to the ceiling; hence, you'll create the header.
To draw headers directly onto the correct layer, you need to make the
A-WALL-HEAD layer current. As you've seen, you can use the Layer Properties
Manager dialog box. But you can also use a shortcut, the Layer drop-down list
in the Layers panel, which you have just been using to move objects from one
layer to another:

1. Make sure 06A-FPLAY4.dwg is open.

2. From the Home tab ➢ Layers panel click the Layer drop-down list to
display a list of layers, or click the down-arrow button on the right end.
The drop-down list opens, displaying a list of the layers in your draw-
ing. If you have more than 10 layers, a scroll bar becomes operational,
giving you access to all the layers.

3. Click the A-WALL-HEAD layer. The drop-down list closes. “A-WALL-
HEAD” appears in the box (see Figure 6.34), telling you that the
Headers layer has replaced Walls as the current layer.

If the list of layers
in the layer drop-
down is not sorted
alphabetically, try
increasing the value
of the MAXSORT
system variable.

FiGuRE 6.34 The A-WALL-HEAD layer is now shown as current in the
Layers panel.

4. Make sure osnaps are enabled using the Object Snap button on the
status bar or by pressing F3. The Endpoint, Midpoint, and Intersection
object snaps (osnaps) are now active.
If they aren't, right-click on the Object Snap button and, in the con-
text menu, click on the osnaps that you want active.

5. From the Home tab ➢ Layers panel, click the Freeze tool.