Overview

External references (xrefs) are vital to capitalize on the power of AutoCAD. Those of you who've never investigated the xref command should ask yourselves the following questions.

• Have I ever wanted to temporarily reference another drawing from within my current drawing?

• Do I insert several detail drawings into one finished drawing?

• Do I create assemblies out of many different drawings?

• Am I constantly updating library symbols in different drawings?

• Do I insert many drawings into one finished drawing only to end up with an incredibly large final drawing?

• Am I in a workgroup situation that strives toward concurrent engineering?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, read on.

If you insert a wblock or block into your current drawing, you will get the entire block reference definition with it, even if you later delete the library symbol. Also, you'll be forced to purge your drawing to rid yourself of that extra garbage, even though you only wanted to use the drawing as a reference. External references to the rescue!

External references are exactly what their name indicates: externally referenced drawings. AutoCAD shoots a pointer out to the externally referenced drawing and brings the file into your current drawing. When you exit your drawing, AutoCAD releases the drawing, discarding all the excess baggage that goes along with the file. When you reenter your drawing, AutoCAD magically knows to go get the external reference again for your use. This process continues until you tell AutoCAD you are no...