How-to guide · how to create a layout template in autocad

How to create a reusable layout template in AutoCAD

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By Saumyajit Maity · Published 8 Apr 2022 · Updated 19 Jul 2025

A layout template saves you from rebuilding the same sheet on every project. Instead of choosing a page size, attaching a plotter, drawing a title block and cutting a viewport each time, you set all of that up once, save it as a drawing template (.dwt), and start every new drawing from it. The sheet arrives ready to draw on, with your standards already baked in.

This guide builds a layout the right way — page size, plotter and plot style first, then a title block and a viewport — and saves it as a template so the whole office plots consistently. It also shows how to pull a single good layout into an existing drawing without importing the entire template.

Step 1 — Start a clean layout and open Page Setup

Open a fresh drawing, click a Layout tab, and right-click it to choose 'Page Setup Manager'. Click 'Modify' to set the printer/plotter, the paper size, the plot style table (your CTB or STB) and the plot scale for this layout. Getting these in the page setup means every sheet built from the template inherits the right output device and line weights.

Name the layout something meaningful — 'A1 Landscape' or 'A3 Detail Sheet' — rather than leaving it as Layout1. Clear names matter once a drawing carries several sheet types.

Step 2 — Add a title block

Insert your office title block into the paper space of the layout, aligned to the printable margin. If you do not have one, draw a simple border and an information block down one edge with fields for the project name, drawing title, scale, date, drawn-by, sheet number and revision. Build it from a block so it is easy to update later.

Turn the variable fields into block attributes (project, title, scale, sheet number, revision) so each new drawing prompts for those values rather than forcing you to edit text. Attributes also let you extract a drawing register from a set, which is exactly the kind of metadata a project wants. A north arrow and a scale bar placed in the title-block zone round the sheet out.

Step 3 — Cut and place a viewport

With the title block in place, run MVIEW and draw a viewport inside the area left clear of the title block. Size it to suit the drawings you expect to put on this sheet. Put the viewport on a dedicated no-plot layer so its border never prints.

Leave the viewport unscaled in the template — you will set the real scale per drawing — or set a sensible default scale if this template is for a specific use, like a 1:5 detail sheet. Either way, the framework is ready for geometry the moment someone opens a drawing from the template.

Step 4 — Set layers, text styles and standards

A good template carries more than a sheet. Create your standard layers with their colours and line types, define text and dimension styles at the right plotted heights, set the units to millimetres (or your office standard), and add your custom scales to the scale list. All of this travels with the template, so a drawing started from it already conforms to standard.

Add annotative text and dimension styles too, so notes and dimensions size themselves to whatever viewport scale a user picks. The more standards you fold in now, the less anyone fixes by hand later.

Step 5 — Save the drawing as a DWT template

Go to Save As and change 'Files of type' to 'AutoCAD Drawing Template (*.dwt)'. Save it into AutoCAD's Template folder so it shows up in the New Drawing dialog. AutoCAD prompts for a template description and the measurement system — write a clear description so colleagues know what the template is for.

From now on, File > New and pick your template, and the new drawing opens with the layout, title block, layers and styles ready. Update the .dwt whenever your standards change, and future drawings inherit the improvement.

Including standard symbols in the template

A template is the natural home for the symbols every sheet needs: a north arrow, a graphic scale bar, level and section markers, and any standard annotation blocks your office uses. Place these once in the title-block zone of the template layout, and every new drawing arrives with them already positioned, so a drafter only rotates the north arrow to suit the project rather than hunting one down each time.

Keep these symbols as proper blocks so they stay consistent and update centrally. Making them annotative is worth doing too, so a north arrow or a section tag prints at the same legible paper size whether the viewport is set to 1:50 or 1:200. A template that ships its standard symbols turns sheet setup from a checklist into a single open-and-go step.

Reusing one layout without the whole template

Sometimes you only want one good layout dropped into a drawing that already exists. Right-click a layout tab and choose 'From template', then browse to a DWT or DWG and pick the layout to import. AutoCAD copies that layout — title block, viewport setup and page setup — straight into the current drawing.

This is the quick way to standardise an old drawing or to add a second sheet size to a project. Combined with a shared template folder, it keeps a whole team plotting from the same sheets without anyone redrawing a border.

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Questions

Frequently asked

What's the difference between a DWT and a DWG template?+

A DWT is a drawing template file — opening it creates a new unnamed drawing that inherits its layouts, layers and styles, so you never accidentally overwrite the master. A DWG can be used as a template too, but saving back to it risks editing the original.

How do I make my template appear in the New Drawing dialog?+

Save the DWT into AutoCAD's Template folder (the default location the Save As dialog offers for template files). It then appears in the list when you choose File > New.

Can a template hold more than one layout?+

Yes. A single DWT can contain several layouts — for example A1, A3 and a detail sheet — each with its own page setup and title block. Every drawing started from the template gets all of them.

Do layers and text styles carry into the template?+

They do. Any layers, text styles, dimension styles, units, scales and blocks present when you save the DWT travel with it, so a new drawing starts already set to your standards.

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