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1.7.16

AutoCAD Layer-Fu

A problem came to my attention today that I have meant to write up for a while. 

The problem is this: Say you are an AutoCAD user and don't want to see layers from an XREF. 
To hide all XREF layers, you can highlight the Layer Filter group that AutoCAD creates for you and toggle on Invert Filter. 

The problem with this technique is that after closing the drawing and coming back in, the Invert Filter toggle will have cleared itself.

Invert filters resets upon opening drawings every time. This has been true for AutoCAD back as far as I can remember. There are several opinions among users whether this is helpful or annoying. On the Autodesk side, there are no plans to change this behavior.

The good news is that it is SUPER easy to make your own "non-XREF" filter. Create a new layer property filter with ~*|* in the description field, as shown below:



  • The ~ is a "NOT" logical filter
  • The vertical bar | is always present in XREF layer names.
  • and of course the asterisk * is a wildcard.

So this filter is saying, "Show me layers that are not XREF"