Count blocks using Quick Select in AutoCAD

Opening Quick Select and choosing the filter

Type QSELECT and Enter, or right-click in the drawing and choose Quick Select, to open the dialog. Set Apply to: Entire drawing (or a window selection if you only want part of the plan). In Object type, choose Block Reference — this restricts the filter to inserted blocks rather than lines or text.

Object type is the first gate. Picking Block Reference means everything that follows applies only to block instances, which is what you want when counting a particular door or table rather than all geometry.

Filtering by block name

With Block Reference chosen, set Properties to Name, set Operator to = Equals, and in the Value list pick the block you want to count. The Value dropdown lists the block names present in the drawing, so you select the exact door or furniture block by name.

Leave 'Include in new selection set' chosen and click OK. AutoCAD selects every instance of that block and reports the number selected on the command line and status bar — that figure is your count. It is the cleanest way to get an exact tally of one named block.

Reading the count it reports

After QSELECT runs, look at the command line: it states how many objects were selected, for example '12 found'. The status bar near the bottom of the screen also shows the selection count. Those instances are now highlighted, so you can visually confirm the count covers the area you expected.

If the number looks wrong, check your Apply to: scope — counting Entire drawing includes anything off in the corners of the layout, whereas a window selection counts only what you fenced. Matching the scope to your intent is what makes the count trustworthy.

Counting dynamic and anonymous blocks

Dynamic blocks and blocks inserted with visibility states can show up under internal anonymous names like *U21, which makes a plain name filter miss some instances. If your count seems low, this is often why. For dynamic blocks, filtering on the Effective Name (rather than the raw Name) captures every variant of the same parent block.

Where QSELECT struggles with these, the BCOUNT command (below) generally handles effective names better, so it is the more dependable tool for schedules that include dynamic blocks with multiple states.

QSELECT versus BCOUNT

QSELECT counts one block at a time and also selects it, which is useful when you want to act on the instances (change a layer, delete, edit). BCOUNT, an Express Tool, instead prints a tally of every block in a selection or the whole drawing at once — a ready-made list of block names with their counts.

For building a schedule, run BCOUNT to get the whole table in one shot. For isolating and then editing a specific block, run QSELECT so you both count and grab the instances. They complement each other rather than competing.

Turning the count into a schedule

A QSELECT or BCOUNT count is the raw number behind a door or furniture schedule. Once you know there are, say, a set number of a given door across the plan, that figure feeds straight into a schedule table or a procurement spreadsheet. Keeping each component as a named block is what makes this possible — loose linework cannot be counted this way.

For richer schedules that include sizes and codes, attach attributes to the blocks and use data extraction (EATTEXT / Data Extraction) to pull a full table including the counts. Quick Select gives you the headline number; data extraction turns it into a structured, exportable schedule.

There is a subtle but important reason to count from blocks rather than annotation. If you label rooms with manual text — a hand-typed '6 chairs' — that number lies the moment the layout changes and nobody updates the note. A QSELECT or BCOUNT count is read live from the geometry, so it is always true to what is actually drawn. Building the habit of counting blocks rather than trusting old labels is what stops a furniture or door schedule from quietly drifting out of step with the plan it is supposed to describe.