Open and Save a Drafting Template

Use the Drafting Templates command import from a variety of pre-defined drafting templates that include a plan set and one or more sheet sets. Any of the settings from these templates or your own plan sets and sheet sets can be edited and saved in a project template and optionally exported as a Project Link file (.vcl). You can work with one template or Project Link file (VCL) that uses your normal, in-house drawing standards, and others that conform to standards imposed by your clients. Storing these in an external file and loading them as needed is convenient and a potential time saver, and enables you to share your sheet setting with colleagues too.

Using drafting templates allows you to create better plan, cross-section, profile, and mixed sheets. Templates make sheet creation faster, easier, and more repeatable by enablig you to:

Plot the locations of utilities in cross-section sheets and label them with names and elevations (or delta elevations) to a selected surface.
Place cut/fill and other areas on a cross-section sheet.
Place a legend that identifies surfaces in a cross-section sheet.
Include consistent information on sheets for all projects, e.g., text fonts, layers, etc.
Plot sheets with a professional-looking title box and dynamic labeling (using Smart Text) at any standard paper size.

In addition, a Sheet Layout and Plotting Exercise and Guide (with data) is available from the Start Page. Select Tours and Tutorials > 17 Drafting and Plotting > Sheet Layout and Plotting.

Prerequisites:

Licensed module; See the Subscription Plans page. For a license matrix by command, see the License page in the TBC Community. Also see View and manage licensed features.

To open a pre-defined drafting template:

Select Drafting Templates in Drafting > Sheets.
In the file explorer, select the Project Link file you want to use, and drag it into an active Plan View.
Edit the plan set's objects and settings as needed.

To save your settings as a project template:

After you have prepared all of the sheets in your plan set the way you want them to plot, save your project.
Delete all of the objects in your model, either by selecting them in the Plan View or in the Project Explorer.
If you have a cross-section sheet set, right-click it and select Properties. Confirm that the Corridor list is set to None. (If a corridor is specified, it will be included in the template.)
Select Save Project as Template.
Give the template a name that indicates that it includes sheet settings, and click Save.
Note: When you save as template, it does not save individual sheets, just the reusable objects.

To export your settings as a Project Link file:

Warning: Before you export your paper space objects and plan and sheet set settings to a Project Link file to use as a sheet plotting template, deselect or dereference (as described in step 2 above) all of the model space ("real-world") objects in the project from which you are exporting. Otherwise, the selected and referenced objects will be part of the VCL template. Layers and text styles will still be referenced.

After you have prepared all of the sheets in your plan set the way you want them to plot, save your project.
If you have a cross-section sheet set, right-click it and select Properties. Confirm that the Corridor box is empty.
In the Project Explorer, select the plan set and sheet sets that you want the template to include. This will effectively select the sheet settings and paper space objects, e.g., sheet border, title block, north arrow, etc. that you want to include.
Follow the steps in Export Project Link Files.
When you start a new project, import the VCL file and save your project (or save it as a project template, as described above).

Scenarios:

If you import a drafting template into your project and begin to make edits, you can always import another drafting template and delete the first. Having more than one plan set in your project (from an imported template) is not a problem.

Dependencies:

None; once you import or export plan set objects and settings as a Project Link file, there is no association between your project and the .vcl file.