Title Block with Attributes

One of the things that every drawing needs is a title block. This provides vital information about the drawing when it is printed. Some of the data that makes up a title block is who draw it, what day it was published, revision number, etc. Every drawing at the professional level will have one. For those that aren't familiar with the term, here is sample one below that is included with AutoCAD.

The title block for this exercise will be designed for an 11"x17" sheet. If you want to make it smaller to fit an 8-1/2"x11" sheet, adjust it as needed. You should be familiar with blocks and attributes before continuing.

Start by drawing a rectangle 16.25" x 10.25. This will give you .375 space on all four sides. Here's the complete title block dimensions, or you can draw in the sections shown below.

Copy the section below into the top right corner of the title bar. This area is used for tracking revisions.

The green lines are used to create reference points for your text. You could also use the M2P Osnap. They are a midpoint that is used for positioning Middle-Centre text. For this section, text is RomanS, 0.125" tall and Middle-Centre justified.

Now draw the bottom right section of the title block. Here is a link to a larger image with the details:

Bottom right corner of the title block detail: tb_bottom.gif. The text is 0.065" tall.

Now comes the fun part, adding the attributes. Use this image as a reference for the positioning of the attributes, and the table below for the contents. You will want to create text styles for the different text below.

TAG	PROMPT	DEFAULT VALUE	FONT	HEIGHT	JUSTIFY
PROJECT	What PROJECT is this?	PROJECT NAME	RomanS	0.25	Middle Center
TITLE	What is the TITLE?	TITLE	RomanS	0.25	Middle Center
LOGO	What are your INITIALS?	ABC	RomanD	0.75	Middle Center
PAPER	What size paper are you using?	( info)	RomanS	0.125	Middle Left
FILENAME	What is the FILENAME?	C:/XXXXX.DWG	RomanS	0.125	Middle Left
REVISION	What REVISION is this?	-	RomanS	0.125	MIddle Left
SCALE	What SCALE is this printed at?	1"=XX"	RomanS	0.125	Middle Left
DRAFTER	WHO drew this?	J. Smith	RomanS	0.125	Middle Left
SHEET	What SHEET is this?	X / X	RomanS	0.125	Middle Left
NOTE1	First NOTE	Note	RomanS	0.1875	Middle Center
NOTE2	Second Note	Note 2	RomanS	0.1875	Middle Center

Once all you attributes are created, they should look something like this. You can always move them to get them in the correct spots.

Once all the attributes are in place, you can create your block. Remember when selecting attributes for a block, you have to select them order. Create it as an External block (WBLOCK) so that you can insert it in other drawings.

Now that you have a title block, you can go into a layout tab and insert it. Answer all the prompts when they come up (look at the command line). Your completed title block should look something like this:

You can now use this as a template for other size sheets, or for horizontal or portrait layouts. Just explode the block, draw the new border lines and re-create the block. For example, you may only have a printer that does 8-1/2 x 11 prints - so create a title block for that size. For more practice, you can create a second block for filling in the revision information at the top.