Autodesk 00308-011408-9F30A User Guide - Page 344

Creating Fields You can create fields to hold data you want to store in the drawing. A field is a user-defined property. On the Database menu, click Options to create a new field. Before adding new fields, you should ask yourself what type of data you want to store. For example, if you are planning a computer network, you might want to know how much cable you need. To store this data, you could create a Cable Length field. If you are creating an electrical schematic, you might want to know the tolerances of the resistors in the circuit. To store this data, you could create a Tolerance field. Once you know what type of data you want to store in a field, you are ready to select its type. Every field must be one of five types: Field types in AutoSketch Field type String Contains text Number number Length number using the current linear units of measurement Angle number using the current angular units of measurement Area number using the current area units of measurement You can have many fields in a drawing, but each field you create must have a unique name. The field name should describe the data it contains because it appears when you request information about an entity. Field names can contain letters, numbers, spaces, and punctuation marks. When you are naming fields that you plan to export to another application, consider that some programs do not support the use of blank spaces, special characters like an underscore (_), or punctuation. If this is the case, it is best to use only letters and numbers in field names. AutoSketch can validate field names to limit them to ten characters where the first character is a letter and remaining characters are letters, numbers, or underscore characters. 334 | Chapter 27 Storing Data in a Drawing