Overview
This is the third in our series of posts discussing new features in AutoCAD 2021. Our earlier posts in the series are:
AutoCAD 2021: the Drawing History Palette
New in AutoCAD 2021: Xref Compare
There's nothing new about the Block Palette per se, since it already exists in AutoCAD 2020. What AutoCAD 2021 has done is to enhance it.
The Enhancement
AutoCAD 2021 basically makes your block palette accessible from any device, at any geographical location (with an internet connection, of course) and from any popular cloud storage location (ie, your blocks can be stored in non-Autodesk cloud locations).
To illustrate, let us suppose you're in your office, sitting at your desktop, and your blocks are stored in Dropbox at myblocks.dropbox.com. You want to add a bathtub block to your drawing (which is stored in your AutoCAD web space).
From the Block Palette you can now open myblocks.dropbox.com and download your blocks into your Block Library. You add a certain bathtub block from the Library to your drawing, told your office administrator to mail the drawing to the client, heave a sigh of relief and step out to a nearby cafe for a timely espresso. You take your laptop with you to feel secure.
While in the throes of espresso ecstasy, you realize that you had inserted the wrong bathtub block, and that you need to immediately change it before the drawing finds its way to the client.
With AutoCAD 2021, and away from your desktop, now all you need do is
- Crank up your laptop
- Go to web.autocad.com and log in
- Open your drawing
- Open the Block Palette and Block Library
- Delete the current bathtub from the drawing and drag the correct bathtub from the Library into the drawing
- Go back to sipping your espresso.
Caveat
AutoCAD 2021 accepts only certain cloud storage platforms, namely Box, Dropbox and Microsoft OneDrive.
(Why the heck don't they accept Google Drive??)
Shortcoming?
We noticed that when using the web app (web.autocad.com) there is no option to open the cloud storage app where your blocks are stored. Are we missing something, if not, this is strange!
The Takeaway
Your Block Palette is now effectively in the cloud and accessible from anywhere at any time and on any device. And when you're at your desktop, you also have access to specific cloud storage apps, in which you are free to store your blocks.
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