About Setting the Color of Objects

You can set the color of an object either by its layer or by specifying its color explicitly, independent of its layer.

All objects are created using the current color, which is displayed in the Properties Inspector.

You can use a variety of color palettes when assigning color to objects, including

Color is also used as a way to indicate lineweight for color-dependent plotting.

ACI Colors

ACI colors are the standard colors used in AutoCAD-based products. Each color is identified by an ACI number, an integer from 1 through 255. Standard color names are available only for colors 1 through 7. The colors are assigned as follows: 1 Red, 2 Yellow, 3 Green, 4 Cyan, 5 Blue, 6 Magenta, 7 White/Black.

True Colors

True colors use 24-bit color definitions to display over 16 million colors. When specifying true colors, you can use either an RGB or HSL color model. With the RGB color model, you can specify the red, green, and blue components of the color; with the HSL color model, you can specify the hue, saturation, and luminance aspects of the color.

Several standard PANTONE color books are included in the product. You can also import other color books such as the DIC color guide or RAL color sets. Importing user-defined color books can further expand your available color selections.

You install color books on your system by using the Files tab in the Options dialog box. Once a color book is loaded, you can select colors from the color book and apply them to objects in your drawings.

PANTONE® Color Books

Pantone has updated the PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM® with the PANTONE® PLUS SERIES of Publications that provides a chromatic arrangement of colors. In AutoCAD-based products, the RGB values of the PANTONE Colors that are assigned to objects are preserved in all current and legacy drawing files.

Color book (.acb) files provide access through the Select Color dialog box to the names of all PANTONE Colors and color books. These .acb files are installed in the \Support\Color folder in the product installation folder.