AutoCAD Quick Tip – Create Multileader Style with Right Click

AutoCAD® has an annotation tool known as Multileaders.  Their display features are controlled by styles (if you are doing it right that is) in the same way dimensions and text styles control the display settings of their objects.  If you find that a multileader has been customized and is no longer controlled by a specific style you can quickly create a new style from it.

Here’s how:

1. Select the multileader.  
2. Right Click.  
3. Multileader Style. 
4. Save as New Multileader Style.

Done.  Now open it in the Multileader Style Manager and double check that it turned out the way you hoped.  I tried it several times on different leaders and sometimes it did funky things, but they were easy to remedy.

Autodesk screen shots reprinted with the permission of Autodesk, Inc.

Multileaders with Blocks

CAD-a-Blog posted earlier about Multileaders and Multileader Styles. Now lets take a look at Multileaders with Blocks for annotation.

When you set up a multileader style, you have three options for the annotation: Mtext, Block, or None. You can set this in the Multileader Style Manager under the CONTENT tab. It’s the first option in the tab. Just click the arrow and the available options will be displayed. Select the one you want. Today we want to look at the BLOCK setting.

This setting will create the callout as a block. You can pick from several standard blocks that come with AutoCAD, or you can use your own. Do what you need. If the standard blocks fit your needs, then why make one? If they don’t then make it the way you like it.

Having the annotation as a block works great for assemblies, subassemblies, charts, or any other drawing that you need to display similar objects in. The other great thing about making the annotations (or callouts) blocks is that it makes it so much easier to be able to extract that data from your drawing.

Imagine that I (or you) am working on a landscape drawing. It shows the types and amounts of different shrubs and trees that we need for the project. I can count each symbol, or I can use data extraction (see previous post) to read the multileader block information and count it for me, and place it in a table for my drawing or report.

The other benefit is visual. I can use different blocks to represent different types of objects. For example, in my landscape drawing we mentioned earlier, I can use hexagon shaped blocks for shrubs, round blocks for trees, and square blocks, for flowers. This will make the drawing much easier to read for other people.

If you want to get real fancy, create blocks with fields and extract that data, or tie it to other objects in your drawing.

Give multileaders with blocks a try. I think you will find them useful.

Happy CADDing.

Multileader Styles

AutoCAD 2008 gave us Multileaders. I have previously posted on them here and spoke about their general use, multi leadered leaders. Now lets take a look and see how to set up a Multileader style.

Let’s start by creating a new Multileader Style. A Multileader style works just like any other style in AutoCAD. In fact, it has many of the same settings as the dimension styles do. Open up the Multileader style manager. Click the NEW button on the right. It starts you off by copying one of your current styles from the drawing file.

There is a default style called STANDARD. I recommend that you create your own default style that is called anything else except standard. This is true for all styles, if you can help it. The reason is that everyone using AutoCAD has a style called standard because it comes that way. If anyone copies your Multileader (or text, or dimension, or etc.) from your file and places it in theirs, it will take on the style attributes called standard that are in their file. Their STANDARD style might not be set the same way yours is! But if you give it a unique name, it is less likely to take on the wrong attributes.

I will call this one ml-001. No reason, only that it isn’t standard. When you give your new Multileader style a name, you have the option of making it annotative or not (meaning that it will be scaled by the annotative scaling feature.) Don’t worry, you can change this later if you wish.

The style Manager has three different tabs; Leader Format, Leader Structure, and Content.

Leader

This is where you set the type, color, linetype, arrowhead, and break size.Most of these items are pretty easy to understand, so I won’t go over every setting option. But here are what I feel are the most important:

• Type:Straight, spline or none.The straight setting creates a “straight” lined leader.The spline creates a curved lined leader.
• Color, Linetype, Linewight: use these to set the color, linetype, and lineweight for the leader.
• Arrowhead Symbol/Size: This works just like the dimension style setting for arrowhead. Choose one or choose a to use a block you created. That is what your arrowhead will be and what size it will be.
• Leader Break Size: Controls the settings used when adding a dimension break to a multileader.

Leader Structure

This tab is where you can set the constraints, structure and scale of the multileader:

• Constraints-Maximum Leader Points: Specifies a maximum number of points for the leader line.
• First Segment Angle: Specifies the angle of the first point in the leader line.
• Second Segment Angle: Specifies the angle of the second point in the multileader landing line.
• Landing Settings: Controls the landing settings of the multileader.
• Automatically Include Landing: Attaches a horizontal landing line to the multileader content.
• Set Landing Distance: Determines the fixed distance for the multileader landing line.
• Scale: Controls the scaling of the multileader.
• Annotative: Specifies that the multileader is annotative.

When the multileader is not annotative, the following options are available.

• Scale Multileaders to Layout: Determines a scaling factor for the multileader based on the scaling in the model space and paper space viewports.
• Specify Scale: Specifies the scale for the multileader.

Content

This tab contains the controls for the content of the multileader style.

• Multileader type: You can choose from Mtext, Block, or None.

Here are the options associated with the Mtext type Multileader:

• Default text: this text will be inserted in to the leader by default. You can always change it.
• Text Angle: Always right reading, As Inserted, or Keep Horizontal.
• Style, Color, Height: set the text style, color and height.
• Always Left Justify: well, check this box and your multileader text will always be left justified.
• Frame Text: Check this box and your text will have a frame around it.
• Leader Conection – Left Attachement: if your text is on the left, then this setting tells AutoCAD where to place the landing, center, top, bottom, etc.
• Leader Connection-Right Attachement: same as above, but when on the right.
• Landing Gap: the gap between the landing and the text.

Here are the options if BLOCK is set for the multileader type:

• Source Block: choose form several premade blocks, or create your own.
• Attachment: sets how the block will be attached to the leader.
• Color: set the color

Most of these settings are obvious and are easily figured out. Some might be a little tricky. Just set these the way you want them and save the style.

Happy CADDING.

Multi Leaders

In AutoCAD 2008, Autodesk gave us Multi Leaders. These are annotations that can have more than one leader coming from it. They can do more that that too. You can combine multileaders, you can align them, and you can use blocks in them as callouts.

You can start the command by typing in MLEADER. Or, in AutoCAD 2008 go to the Multileader toolbar, and click the mleader icon. OR, go to the DIMENSION pull down menu, and then click the Multileader button. In AutoCAD 2009 you can do the same as above, or in the Ribbon, go to the HOME tab, in the ANNOTATION Panel click the Mleader icon. OR in the ribbon, go to the ANNOTATION tab and then go to the Multileader Panel. Quick tip, don’t type in ML (I know, it seems logical) because that is the shortcut for Multi-Lines. Instead, type in MLD to create a new multileader. Here are some other out of the box keyboard shortcuts for multileaders:

MLA, *MLEADERALIGN

MLC, *MLEADERCOLLECT

MLD, *MLEADER

MLE, *MLEADEREDIT

MLS, *MLEADERSTYLE

Now that we know where to go to start the command, let’s start the command. You will quickly find the multileaders work and act in a very similar fashion to leaders. You pick the point where you want your arrow head to point to (get the point yet?) and then you pick the point where you want your landing (the landing is the horizontal tail that comes from the end of the leader and stops just short of the text.) Then enter your text. Easy enough.

Now, if you want to add a second leader to this callout, then click the ADD LEADER button. Then follow the prompts. Select the multileader you want to add to. A new leader is drawn and follows your crosshairs around until you designate where you want your new leader’s arrow head to point to. It will keep doing this until you hit the ENTER key. So you can add more than one leader to your multileader at a time. It can be fun. Go crazy, get a little wild, and add tons of leaders. Ok stop, that’s too many!!

How do you remove a leader? Good question. Go to your toolbar, pulldown, ribbon panel, whatever, and click the, any guesses, REMOVE Leader button. Select the multileader you want to edit, and then select the leader you want to remove. You can keep doing this until there are no leaders left to select. If you select them all, then the multileader will be deleted, oops!! When you select the ones you want to remove, they will be highlighted. Press enter to remove them. There you go.

Now that you have multileaders in your drawing, you need to edit them, move them, and adjust them. Go ahead. Use the grip edits to do this. You can move the arrow head around just like any other leader. Look at the image provided. I have selected the multileader. See the grips that are available? The grip at the top of the text will allow you to move just the text, while the arrow head stays in place, just like regular leaders that are associated. The grip at the end of the landing, just before the text, will stretch the landing and move the text, keeping the distance from the landing to the text the same. The grip where the leader and landing meet will stretch the leader and the landing while leaving the text and the arrow head in place. Cool huh? The grip in the middle of the landing will move it and the text around leaving the arrowhead in place.

To edit the text, just double-click it and it works just like mtext. If you change the text justification, the multileader landing will stay relative to the rest of the text. If you want to change the landing position to the text, select the multileader, open the properties palette, and change the left/right attachment setting. You can set it to line up at the top, middle, bottom, etc.

There is a lot more you can do with multileaders, but that will have to come in a different post. These abilities are what really set multileaders apart from leaders. You can align them, combine them, and use blocks, standard and custom, for your callouts. We will look at those later.

Happy CADDING.