
For example, if you were creating a landscape masterplan, you may have layers called "Trees", "Shrubs", "Path" etc. Experienced AutoCAD users will use layers to order their drawings by drawing components. The beauty is that you could always turn this layer back on at some future time if modifications to the drawing are required. When the drawing is complete, you could simply turn this layer off so that it can't be seen. You could create a layer called "Construction" and use this for your construction lines. For example, you may need to create a number of construction lines in a drawing which will not form a part of the finished image.

Layers are effectively a way of ordering your drawing. This makes working with very complicated drawings much more efficient. However, layers are much more powerful because you can have many layers in a single drawing and you can control the visibility, colour and linetype of layers independently.

Basically, layers are the computer equivalent of tracing overlays on a drawing board. The concept of layers is very important in AutoCAD and the correct use of layers can make your drawing much easier to work with. Good use of layers is the most important aspect of good drawing practice. Experienced AutoCAD users use layers all the time and that is why the Object Properties toolbar contains so many layer functions. Probably the most important object property to understand well is the layer property. If you just need information quickly, use the QuickFind toolbar below to go straight to the information you need or select a topic from the contents list above. Take time to work through this tutorial, it is particularly important to get to grips with object properties since it can make the difference between a really good AutoCAD drawing and a really terrible one.

This is one of AutoCAD's default toolbars and can usually be found directly below the Standard toolbar in the top left hand corner of the AutoCAD window. In AutoCAD Release 14, the easiest way to control object properties is to use the Object Properties toolbar, illustrated below. Text, for example, is the only object type which has a Text Style property. Some objects have properties which are specific to themselves. Some properties such as Colour, Linetype and Layer are common to all objects. Every AutoCAD object, such as a line or a circle has properties.
