Use the Swap Block Tool to Change
Company Title Blocks
Todd Schmoock
AutoCAD Electrical has a tool that will swap/update blocks in your drawing from an old version to a
new version. When using the Icon Menu tool to insert symbols in your drawing AutoCAD Electrical will
look at the drawing first and if it finds a block with the same name it will insert the block from the
drawing and not the library. If you wanted to insert a new version of the block and force AutoCAD
Electrical not to look at the drawing the Swap/Update Block tool needs to be used and is located on
the Schematic tab:
So what if the company title block changes? This could happen for several reasons, but typically it's
because the company is bought and/or changes the logo design. Synergis recently went through this
where it was decided to change the logo. Some policies will say anything new from this point forward
will use the new logo. However, what if you would use AutoCAD Electrical's Copy Project tool because
a previous project is similar to the new project and now you have the old border on all drawings you
just copied. The solution is to use the Swap/Update Block tool.
The Swap/Update Block tool has several options. In this case Option B will be used which will update a
block with block with the same name:
www.synergis.com
Use the Swap Block Tool to Change Company Title Blocks
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This means the new title block needs to have the same name as the old one. Typically this is what
would happen anyway. Additionally, it's a good idea to have a dwg version of the new title block
template in the AutoCAD Electrical library path. A good practice is to have a folder named Company
Symbols which holds all the custom company symbols. Now that all the pieces are where they need to
be it's time to use the Swap/Update Block tool.
Activate the project file and open a drawing that has the old title block. Start the Swap/Update Block
tool and select the first option under Option B:
After select OK in the Swap/Update Block tool the title block needs to be selected and then the Update
Block - New block's path\filename dialog will be displayed. Browse to the folder that holds the updated
title block and select it then click Project or Active Drawing. Selecting Active Drawing will only change
the current drawing displayed and Project will update all the drawings in the project. The Project
option is great for the situation where more than ten drawings are in the project and it is more
important to get the title blocks updated than to look at each drawing right now:
Use the Swap Block Tool to Change Company Title Blocks
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Now the new title block is in the drawing, or drawings if the Project option was selected. Notice how
the attribute data has been copied over the new title block:
Before moving from AutoCAD to AutoCAD Electrical most companies struggle over
whether the cost to upgrade is justified. Often tools found in AutoCAD Electrical
reference how much time is saved over using standard AutoCAD. There is no doubt
using the Swap/Update Block tool to update old title blocks will save significant
amounts of time, but it is difficult to determine how much time since every company
will have different requirements. However, it should be noted how the Swap/Update
Block tool was designed to be used on electrical smart blocks and here it was used on
a non-electrical smart block. With this in mind what else can it be used for and how
much more time will it save? So think out of the box for this tool and others found in
AutoCAD Electrical.