by Martin Phelps
With the introduction of AutoCAD 2020, additional features have been added to the “Block Insert” command. These have also been incorporated to AutoCAD 2021.
Selecting the “Insert Block” command from the ribbon menu, now displays a “Flyout” giving the additional options to either select “Recent Blocks” or “Blocks from Libraries” as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1.
The “Grey Area” above these commands is known as the “Block Gallery”, which displays the blocks that exists in the current drawing. “Blocks” can be dragged from the “Gallery” into the drawing. If this area remains “Grey” or “Blank” there are no Blocks in the current drawing, as Figure 2.
Figure 2.
If the current drawing does contain “Blocks”, the user can scroll through all blocks within the drawing by using the scroll bar on the right of the gallery as in Figure 3.
Figure 3.
The “Gallery” can be expanded by dragging the white arrow at the bottom right of the “Flyout” menu, as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4.
With the “Gallery” resized, more than one “Block” can be displayed in the “Gallery Pane” as shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5.
If the drawing contains a large number of “Blocks”, all of which cannot be displayed at the same time, a scroll bar will appear on the right side of the “Gallery” allowing the user to move through the “Blocks” one pane at a time.
Saving the drawing after the “Gallery” has been resized will also save the “Gallery” settings to the drawing file.
Selecting either “Recent Blocks” or “Blocks from Libraries” will open up the “Blocks Pallet” and display the relevant tab within the “Pallet” as per Figure 6.
Figure 6.
The required “Block” can be selected and dragged into the drawing.
As an alternative to selecting “Insert” from the ribbon menu, typing the command will open the “Block Pallet” and bypass the fly out options of the ribbon.
If the old “Insert” dialogue box is preferred, type in “Classicinsert” this will display the dialogue box as AutoCAD 2019 and previous, shown in Figure 7.
Figure 7.
This command could be allocated to an Icon and placed into either the “Quick Access Menu or a customised “Pallet”.