Tool Palettes: Creating content and standardizing by

distributing them inside your office or region

1. Organizing your content
a. You should start off with a drawing that has blocks, styles (text, dimensions, tables,
mleaders, etc.) This drawing needs to be centrally located so that anyone who is going to
be using this tool palette has at least read access, otherwise the tool palette will not work.
It should look similar to this as it will be easier to modify and update in the future. You
should consider putting this on the M drive in the

M:\CADD\AUTODESK\2013\Library\Blocks\ToolPalette or the
M:\CADD\AUTODESK\2015\Library\Blocks\ToolPalette directories.

However, placing it on any drive that might not be considered version dependent is also a
viable option as well.

2. Setup the Profile and the Shortcut Icon

a. Launch AutoCAD and go to Options>Profiles>Add to List> and name it
ToolPaletteCreate

b. Set it current

c. Go to the Files Tab and change the tool palette path

d. Select OK and close out of AutoCAD
e. Go to your shortcut that you use to launch Civil 3D and Copy that shortcut.
f. Go into the shortcut properties and change the line you see here to this
For 2015 it should read like this
"C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2015\acad.exe" /ld "C:\Program
Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2015\\AecBase.dbx" /p "ToolPaletteCreate" /product "C3D"
For 2013 it should read like this
"C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013\acad.exe" /ld "C:\Program
Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013\AecBase.dbx" /p "ToolPaletteCreate"
g. Now launch from our new icon any time we are going to make any new modifications.
 3. Preplanning (think before you do)

In this example we see that we have several types of annotation.

For instance the fonts/styles that we use for Roadway Names
is different than it is for Matchlines and General Notes. By
organizing these by groups with what they call a Seperator
gives a much clearer way of organizing.

You will see that the Detail Callouts contain both blocks and
multileaders that utilize blocks as well.

For keynotes you see that some are dynamic blocks and some
are regular blocks with attributes.

So! Having your drawing organized by palette name will help

you know how to organize by Seperators for making an
efficient and intuitive tool palette.
4. Creating a New Tool Palette
a. Make sure that your tool palette is showing
b. When you switched your tool palette location inside Options to just your U drive you
only have one tool palette therefore yours should be just like this.

c. Now we are going to right click on our tool palette and select New Palette

d. And now we are going to rename it Annotation. It is a lot better to Name a tool palette
NOW than to do it later because when you look at the actual files in windows explorer it
does not rename the actual file. SO do this immediately (technically we should have
named this SD Annotation)

And just hit Enter to accept your new name.

e. Typically you want to start at the top so lets name our first Sub Category we will call it
Text Objects like this.
f. Now all we have to do is highlight objects from our drawing and drag and drop them into
our tool palette like this and let go.

Now lets add a separator by right clicking and selecting Add Separator (sometimes you
have to kind of make some room just to be able to right click because there is not enough
gray space to right click. You might be right clicking on the newly formed buttons
instead of the palettes so just be aware of this.
 g. Continue to do this for each of the groups.
h. Now there are some things you can do to each of these items by right clicking on them
and go to their individual properties. For instance, depending on the tool, you can change
the name and or add a description to something more meaningful, you can explode it
change the layer it is placed on, its rotation angle if it is a block, etc.. If it were a
multileader style you can change the Left/Right attachment points, scale, and even the
default text. Each object has different settings so check them out. Hatch patterns are a
great example of a great way to standardize. You can even drag a polyline in there and it
will have different prompts for running those too! Shoot you can even run lisp routines
from there.
i. Go ahead and build out your current tool palette the way you want it.

5. Uploading the Master Tool Palette to the Network (Exporting and Importing)
a. Right click on the Tool Palette bar and select Customize Palettes

b. Highlight your Palette on the left hand side and select Export.

c. Give it the same name as your Palette and export. This will have a file extension of XTP.
d. Close out of the Customize Tool Palettes box.
e. Change your current profile (the one we modified) and on the files tab change the Tool
Palette File Locations to M:\CADD\Autodesk\2013\Library\ToolPalette (or where you
would like the tool palette to be placed) then select OK
f. Next go back to the tool palette and right click and select customize (like step a) and
select Import pick your XTP file.
g. Close out of AutoCAD completely. The reason you have to do this is because there are
many times including this one where AutoCAD does not commit to the changes till it
closes.
h. Open AutoCAD again with your normal profile (KHA).
 i. Because you have rights to that directory now everyone should have access to that
palette. It will automatically show up for any other user who is pathed to the same
location like our standard default settings as soon as they restart their AutoCAD.

6. Creating a Tool Palette Group for Distribution

a. A tool palette is a single item, but what happens if you have multiple palettes and you
want to share them as a group? To do this we need to create a group then share that as
well. This will make the organization much easier for the user and for you to implement.
b. To do this we simply right click on our palette and select Customize Palettes again.
c. On the right hand side by right clicking you can create a New Group.

d. We will call it SD Annotation

e. You should now be able to drag the palette(s) on the right to your group

Keep on dragging them one by one

 f. Next simply right click on your group and select Export.

g. Save this to a location that everyone can access for instance it could be in the root of the
ToolPalettes folder on the M drive if you wanted or some other place where standards are
located.

7. Have all local users Import the Tool Palette Group

a. Send your users an email notification that the new Tool Palette Group is available for
Import.
b. The end user simply has to go into Customize Tool Palette and right click select Import in
the Group area and browse to the location and open that file.
c. Now that group is on their machine and they are up and running.

8. Updating a Palette
a. You should be able to make all future additions directly with the standard KHA profile.
The only reason you created a copy of the original profile is it is extremely handy to not
have anything commit to the server till you are actually done or ready to share your
work is essentially off line in a test environment.
b. Keep in mind that you are linked to that DWG where you dragged the blocks, styles, etc.
so never get rid of the dwg file or move its location!!!
c. From now on any updates you make to the palettes themselves there is no need for the
end user to do anything they are automatically updated after you and them have closed
out AutoCAD and reopened. HOWEVER, if you add an additional palette to the group
then you will have to re-export and they will have to reimport the group.