Hatch default files remain unchanged despite adding new hatches

[JamFam]

Hello everyone; I hope you are enjoying the warmer temps, at least we here in the Vancouver Canada area are, it's only been about 7 months. Anyways my question has to do with hatches. I have downloaded a hatch file called ansi38. When I access this file from the design centre all 202 hatches load onto the right side of the design centre screen to display what is inside the file. I can drag any of these hatches onto my screen and onto an object but I cannot access the hatch editor, some error. I see that the ansi38 file is loaded into the "custom tab of the hatch type/custom hatch palette because it resides with the acad.PAT and ansi.PAT files but oddly enough only the standard ansi38 hatch is visible on the preview screen on the right of the hatch pattern palette. No matter what I do to the acad.PAT or ansi.PAT files I cannot load the desired hatches from inside the ansi38.PAT file. What am I doing wrong and why can I see the hatches inside the ansi38.PAT file from the design centre but cannot access them any other way. If anyone can help I would appreciate it.Note: All of the hatch codes inside the ansi38.PAT file are visible insode Notepad just like the acad.PAT and ansi.PAT files.I'm using AutoCAD 2010.

 

Thanks

[nestly]

This is not something I already knew about, but from what I can gather, you either have to copy/paste the new hatch definition into acad.pat and acadiso.pat, or each hatch pattern must be in it's own .pat file and that .pat file must be named the same as the hatch pattern. Of course the .pat files must be in the support path.

[JamFam]

Hi Nestly; I did some further reading and discovered just as you said, that each hatch .pat file must be named exactly as the hatch name or it won't work. I did try to copy/ paste the hatch patterns into the acad and iso.pat files but the end result remained unchanged. None of the new hatches appeared in the updated acad or acadiso.pat files. So I am now taking each individual hatch code and creating it's own .pat file. This will take some time as about 70% of the new hatches are not already inside the standard acad and acadiso.pat files, that way I can have them appear as custom hatches. I hope this helps others viewing this post.

[nestly]

Interesting, I just added some new patterns to the end of my Acad.pat file and they showed up. I am using 2011, if that makes any difference.

[irneb]

Interesting, I just added some new patterns to the end of my Acad.pat file and they showed up. I am using 2011, if that makes any difference.

Yes you can do that, but it only works on the ACAD.PAT file. I prefer not using any of these automatic files which come with ACad's installation - they could possibly be overwritten due to an update, and upgrades become a paint.

 

For custom hatches, open that ansi38.PAT file in a text editor (after creating a backup). Erase all other linetype defs except for the ANSI38 one. You could save the others to their own files if you want them as well. This is the simplest method IMO, it allows you to easily install / share linetypes by simply copying a file (instead of having to modify one of ACad's own).