Before beginning a new drawing, determine drawing properties like scale, units, interactive displays, color palettes, line thickness, and dimension standards. See Palette Layout Options to set the preferred window options prior to setting up the drawing.
The combination of layers, classes, and views can produce a variety of drawings generated from a single file (see Drawing Structure). Proper file setup ensures maximum usability for multiple output.
The three required drawing settings are layer scale, units, and drawing size. Once these are established, optional drawing settings can be found in document preferences, snap and reference grids, layers and classes, and other defaults.
Setting up the layers and classes while setting up the drawing is recommended. See Concept: Layers Overview and Concept: Classes Overview for more detailed information about creating layers and classes.
Use templates to specify many of these settings automatically. Several standard templates are provided, or you can create custom templates as described in Creating Templates.
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