We have been using templates for our exercises and activities without discussing the concept in detail.

My reasons for this were to allow the user to:

1. become proficient at draughting with AutoCAD

2. understand attributes

3. understand the concepts of paper space layouts.

A template is a prototype drawing, i.e. it is similar to our A3PAPER standard sheet which has been used when every new exercise/activity has been started.

The term prototype/standard drawing refers to a drawing which has various default settings, e.g. layers, text styles, dimension styles, etc. The drawing has thus been customised to company/user requirements.

With AutoCAD, all drawings are saved with the file extension .dwg while template files have the extension .dwt.

Any drawing can be saved with the .DWG or .DWT extensions.

Template drawings (files) are used to 'safeguard' the prototype drawing being mistakenly overwritten.

1. AutoCAD has templates which conform to several drawing conventions.

2. the drawing conventions available are: ANSI, DIN, Gb, ISO and JIS

3. all templates are available in several paper sizes

4. other template drawings are also available

5. template files can be opened from the Startup dialogue box.

We will investigate:

1. completing and saving a drawing using an opened template file

2. creating our own template file.

The ISO A3 template file has been saved as our A3PAPER standard/prototype drawing file.

1. We have modified this file, e.g. layers, text styles, dimension...