In my opinion, Tool Palettes are the best feature to come out of AutoCAD since Xrefs. Tool Palettes are so powerful and a huge time saver when configured properly but how to do this, and fast? The are many different tasks or features of Tool Palettes but this article will only focus of the use of the inserting blocks.
In the past, most users utilized the infamous "wblock' command to create a block DWG that was located on the server. Then using the 'insert' command, the user would call the block from the server, assign the appropriate layer, linetype, scale......etc, before placing the block in the drawing.
Tool Palettes can do the same thing better and faster but how to get all those block DWGs on the sever into one Tool Palette? Instead of opening each DWG and dragging the block onto a Tool Palette, you can create a Tool Palette from multiple block DWGs in one shot.
The following steps will guide are only applicable in AutoCAD 2009 or newer versions.
1. Open the DesignCenter. (Ctrl+2)
2. Using the 'Folder' tab, locate the folder that contains all the block DWGs.
4. Select "Create Tool Palette of Blocks.
5. Wait for the program to create Tool Palette. It may appear that the program has crashed or stalled but it may take some time to create the palette depending on the amount and size of DWGs in the folder.
As I mentioned before, there are many other reasons to use a Tool Palette beside inserting a block, but this is one of the best.
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