AutoCAD Civil 3D

[#1]

I'd like feedback as to whether you "Insert" or "XERF" your title blocks into paper space for setting up sheets. What are the compelling arguments either way?

[#2]

If the title block is shared across multiple files then you'll want to use an XREF. If within a single file then a block works fine.

If you have any reason to expect the project will evolve into multiple files for certain drawing sets then you'd save yourself a lot of re-work to start with XREF'd borders and title blocks.

[#3]

We have a very fixed, static title block and border, so we insert it as a block into each sheet, but the Project Name, Sheet Numbers, etc. are inserted using Fields so we can update them via the Sheet Set Manager.  It works well for us.

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[#4]

In theory, when the title block is an XREF the linework (e.g. company logo) can be udpated in one location without needing to update all drawings.  You would still need a block insert to handle the attributes though.  But there are a few short-comings with that method.  Radical changes to the appearace will require changing the inserted block with attributes on every drawings anyways.  You also need to handle legacy drawings as well - does that old drawing point to the right XREF?  If the XREF contents have changed but the file is still in the same place, the legacy drawing won't look the same as it was officially issued.

Almost all of our clients use straight-up block inserts.  One uses the XREF + insert scheme.

[#5]

I don't like the XREF method for title blocks since attributes cannot be used. If you have to insert another block that contains them, what's the point?

In 13 years of drafting I have had to change the title bloick maybe once for a whole project mid-stream

I also have dynamic block properties in many of my title blocks which would not work with xrefs.

[#6]

I've never used the Xref method but the Insert method works well for me as I have populated the block with field attributes/properties for use in Sheet Set Manager

[#7]

We use a combination of both.  Anything that appears on every sheet is in a drawing that is xrefed.  All the components that are unique to each sheet are inserted as a block.  The block contains attributes, which may have fields referencing sheet set properties.

[#8]

We also insert our title block in as a block and utilize the custom sheet and sheet set fields in SSM. Very easy to manipulate alterations to the sheet or sheet set, all in the SSM without having to open any drawings.

[#9]

Our "Title Block" is just linework.  So we don't insert or x-ref. It's drawn in a template drawing and we just insert a layout from template, so all the linework is there.

We have Mtext with fields to reference Sheet Set data.  These are easier to deal with than blocks in the half of our projects that don't use sheet sets; we can just edit the Mtext, delete the field and write what we need.

[#10]

we do both block and xref. xref in the title block linework, project name, date, job number, drafter, etc. block in sheet title, page number, etc. once it's all set up in your drawing templates it's easy peasy. it's sucks having to change the date manually on 100 sheets.