Title Blocks in Layouts

[miket1210]

I have worked for a few different companies in the last five years, all cabinet shops doing detail drawings. I now work for a small interior design firm. Every company that I worked for in the past inserted there title block into the layout as a "block". The firm I now work for has always inserted the title block as an Xref. I have been hired to be the Cad Manager and to (hopefully) get everyone drawing the same. Our designers are not particularly cad savvy and one constant problem they have is dealing with xrefs. My question is, do other companies insert there title block as "blocks" or as "xrefs and what is the advantage of one or the other.

[ennujozlagam]

hi, if you inserted titbleblock as block in every file and if there any changes like for example consultant name etc. etc. you have to open every file and change it individually. While if you use xref title block you have to change it once and automatic every file will be updated. hope it helps. thanks

[miket1210]

Thanks for your reply. Makes sense. 


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[3wood]

Using xref as title block has both advantage and disadvantage.

The advantage is you can easily update the title block in all xrefed drawings in one go in the future.

Disadvantage is you may want to keep the old title block in certain drawings so you have to replace xrefed new title block with old title block in these drawings.

[Bob_Zurunkle]

Of course, sheet sets and files that use multiple tabs may be another story. We mostly use multiple tabs, so our title block is already part of the few sheets we have in our template. By using custom fields, we can enter common info for all titleblocks through File -> Drawing Properties -> Custom tab.

[Anonymous]

I"ve come to  like Xref's and this maybe be stoopid question, if so, please forgive my ignorance, but how do control individual page numbers on all the pages in Xref's? 

[jggerth]

generally, using an XREF border, containing everything that doesn't change, and inserting an ATTRIButed block that contans everything that _does_ change between sheets.  Combine that with sheet Set Manager and Fields, and it's works failry well.

[jmcbride]

We use blocks pulled from "Sheet creation template" file for Call-outs and title blocks as well as our Page setup overides. These blocks all have fields being populated from from the sheet set.

create a .DWT file with whatever blocks you use for Call-outs and View Labels.

Start a new Sheet set and on the sheet list tab, right click on the sheetset name and go to properties. 

Now just browse to each block and it will know to pull it from that location everytime.

You can see my paths in the attached pic.

[Kent1Cooper]

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@miket1210 wrote:

..... My question is, do other companies insert there title block as "blocks" or as "xrefs and what is the advantage of one or the other.

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Another consideration that hasn't been mentioned here yet is memory consumption.  When something like a Title Block is inserted as a Block in every sheet, the definition of it [all the linework elements, Text, logo graphics, nested Block definitions, Layers involved, etc.] must be stored in every drawing it's used in.  When it's an Xref, that definition of elements exists only once, and everywhere it's used involves only the file name/path, insertion point, scales and rotation -- less memory consumed even if it's used in only two drawings, and much less if in a lot of drawings, not only in the drawing files' home location, but also in [for example] transmission of files by e-mail, distribution on CD's or thumb drives, cloud storage, etc.  [This was one of the main reasons the Xref concept was developed in the first place, because memory was a lot more expensive then than it is now.]