TABLE OF CONTENTS Layers must be the most ubiquitous organizing tool in AutoCAD. Unfortunately, what is simple in concept (layers) doesn't always translate to what is simple in execution (layer handling). Many tools and techniques make layer handling easier and once you know them, your job will be easier as well.
This tip is kind of a one-liner, but here it is: Use nonplotting layers to document your drawing. You have at your fingertips the world's most sophisticated computer-aided design software, and yet you print out a copy and paste a sticky note on it for your colleague to read. Are you crazy?
Make a layer for internal documentation purposes, and write text, draw pictures, paste in spreadsheets, whatever just get the point across within the drawing file. That way, your colleagues can immediately know your mind the next time they open the drawing. You're guaranteed that whoever opens the drawing will see your documentation.
If you heed this simple advice, remember that it's likewise essential that this information remain "for eyes only"; put it on a nonplotting layer. Internal documentation isn't to be printed.
In the distant past, proto-drafters had to use the DEFPOINTS and/or ASHADE layers to ensure their primitive markings would never appear on the cave wall. They knew these layer names were and are special because they never plot, by definition. DEFPOINTS was created automatically for dimensions, and ASHADE was created for lights.
But that was ancient history, and...
