Creating a Default Hatch

Once you have a hatch looking how you want it and it’s been approved by the team to be used as the Default, you have to export it to the Y:002 CAD Standards\VectorWorks Defaults\Libraries\Defaults\Attributes – Hatches\Exported Attributes – Hatches.vwx drawing to show up in the hatch pulldown.

To do this, open the Resource Browser (Ctrl+R), find the hatch you’d like to export, select it, right click and select Export… Next click the Browse button in the lower left of the new window that opens and go to Y:002 CAD Standards\VectorWorks Defaults\Libraries\Defaults\Attributes – Hatches\Exported Attributes – Hatches.vwx. Click OK and you’re set.

New favorites for Resource Browser

Bring up Resource Browser (Ctrl R).  Click on the top arrow on the right side and go down to “Add New Favorites Files”.  You should link all your favorites to the 0002 CAD Standards/VectorWorks Defaults.  Add any of the VectorWorks files, but make sure you include all the files in the Symbol Library folder (These are our standards)

Setting up a Viewport

To create a new Viewport on a Sheet Layer, select View -> Create Viewport… near the bottom of the pulldown. In the new dialog box, fill in the Name: box with the label exactly as you want it to appear on the drawing tag. The drawing tag will be in caps if the Name: box is in caps.

Next, select the sheet layer you want the viewport to appear on in the Create on Layer: pulldown. This pull down has all available layers listed in it.

Pick the layer you want to be showing by clicking the Layers: button. The next pulldown, Scale:, lets you select the scale you want. The View: pulldown allows you to choose a view for your viewport. For a plan, you want Top/Plan and so on.

The Rendering: pulldown lists modes for rendering the viewport. Wireframe is used for Top/Plan views while Hidden Line is used for elevations of a modeled building. The Projection: pulldown should bet set to 2D for everything that isn’t an artistic rendering. 

Click OK and the viewport is created.

One final step is to set the viewport to black and white to ready it for printing. This may be done now, but I usually choose to wait to do this when I am ready to print. You can select all the viewports on the sheet at once, so it doesn’t save time to do it now or later. To change a viewport to black and white, select the viewport(s) and go to the Object Info palette. At the bottom, click the Advanced Properties… button and check the Black and White Only box and click OK.

Text over Hatch

To have your Text read through your Hatch, select the text box and give it a solid white fill. Then, right click and select Send to..> Send to Front. Your text should now be surrounded by a white box the size of your text box.