AutoCAD How To: Quickly Replace Multiple Blocks with Another Block!

Hey everybody, Today I’ve got a great tip for you all that I am sure will come in handy! As many of you probably already know, in addition to my regular tutorials, courses, and various posts I also like to share underused and lesser-known quick commands/tricks withing AutoCAD. I like these quick posts because everyone has time for a 3-5 minute video or blog post and in them, I try to teach or highlight a trick/command that could save you hours or more over your time drafting in AutoCAD. In today’s post, I wanted to share with you all a quick way to replace similar blocks in your drawing with another block. Easily and effectively swapping one for another throughout an entire drawing. The BLOCKREPLACE command and express tool is not used very often but it can be a great time saver. The command is a little dated at this point in time but I am sure you will still be able to find a use for it :). To begin, simply enter BLOCKREPLACE at the command line or find and click the button in the express tools ribbon tab as shown below:   Next, the dialog box will ask to either pick an instance of the block in your drawing that you would like to replace and select it or choose it from the list of inserted blocks in the drawing. In the example below, Lighting Fixture 2 is the block to be replaced, once selected simply hit OK to move on. Now that we’ve selected the block to be replaced in the drawing we can use the same process again to choose which block we would like to replace it with. In the example we will replace it with the Lighting Fixture block, in the image below you can see it selected, I’ve also highlighted the blocks that are going to be replaced in the next step.  

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  The final step in the process is a simple prompt at the command line asking if we would like to purge the no longer used block. This is up to you, it can be nice to have it purged and keep the drawing clean and clutter-free, I’ve written about purging and cleaning drawings in a previous post here, but if you plan to use the block again later on in the project it can be fine to leave it in for now. Just remember to purge and clean your drawing up when it’s finished. After confirming with enter, the process of replacing the blocks will take place in the background, taking a few seconds or more depending on how many instances of the block are in the drawing. The final result below shows that all of the original light fixture blocks have been replaced with our new one. If you would like to watch the accompanying video to today’s tip, check it out below: That’s all for today’s quick tip, I hope you all were able to take something away from it and able to add a new tool to your CAD toolbox! Be sure to subscribe and follow on twitter @cadintentions to keep up to date and be the first to get updates on the newest videos, posts, and downloads. As always, thank you so much for reading and watching, I am super excited to be back and posting regularly on the blog and hope you all will follow along. Cheers and happy drafting! PS: don’t forget to check out the link to the Productivity Webinar for more details and to take advantage of the blog deal! https://gumroad.com/l/oPLLa/CIBLOG1 PPS. Thank you again for visiting and don’t forget to subscribe to the newsletter to keep up to date on new CAD news, tutorials and tricks: Subscribe here