About Project Standards Terminology

project drawing

A drawing file belonging to an AutoCAD Architecture 2025 toolset project. A drawing must be part of a project to access and be synchronized with project standards.

standards drawing

A file (DWG, DWT, DWS) that contains standard styles and display settings associated with the project. Standards drawings can be placed in a folder within the project folder, if they contain project-specific standards, or outside the project folder if they contain department-specific or company-wide standards.

Standards drawings can be included in e-transmit and archiving packages.

standard style or display setting

A style or display setting that has been defined as a standard for a certain project. To be defined as a standard style or display setting, it needs to be contained in a standards drawing. Standard style types and display settings include the following:

  • object styles (for example, wall styles, door styles, and so on)
  • property set definitions
  • property data formats
  • schedule table styles
  • classification definitions
  • display theme styles
  • layer key styles
  • mask block definitions
  • material definitions
  • multi-view block definitions
  • profile definitions
  • display properties
  • display sets
  • display configurations
Not standardized style or display setting

A style or display setting in a project drawing for which no corresponding object can be found in the project standards drawings.

version

The process of recording changes to project standard styles and display settings. Standard styles and display settings should be versioned when they are changed in a standards drawing. When a new version is created, the next synchronization recognizes the style or display setting as changed and lets you update the project drawing accordingly.

Nonstandard version of a standard style or display setting

Standard styles and display settings in a project are versioned when they are changed either in a project drawing or a project standards drawing. A version of a standard style could for example have the date of July 14, 2006. The previous version could be a week earlier from July 7, 2006.

When the synchronization detects a version of the style or display setting in a project drawing that has a version date not found in the project standards drawing (for example, a version dated July 12, 2006), this version is labeled a “nonstandard version” of a project standard style or display setting.

older version of a standard style or display setting

When the synchronization in the above example detects a version of the style or display setting dated July 7, 2006 in the project drawing, this is labeled as an “older version”, because the version exists in the project standards drawing, but has been updated by a newer one from July 14, 2006.

synchronization

The process of checking a drawing or project against its associated standards to identify and remove version discrepancies between the standards and the project. Synchronization can be set up to run invisibly in the background, run automatically with user prompting, or can be manually initiated by the user.

project tool palette group

A project tool palette group is associated automatically with the project. It can be referenced from a shared location or be copied to each user’s computer.

project tools

Project tools are tools in the project tool palettes set for the project. In order to ensure that the current style definition is always used, project-specific tools should point directly to the styles within a standards drawing.

standards drawing location

When standards drawings, catalogs, and libraries are located within the project folder, they are treated as project-specific. For example, if the project is used as a template for a new project, all files from the standards folder are copied to the new project, to enable changing and overwriting them in the new project. Standards files that are located outside the project folder are not copied when creating a new project; they are only referenced from their original location in both the existing and the new project. This would be appropriate for files containing company standards that should not be changed from project to project.