Need help with shape style

I still haven’t been able to find the decoder ring for setting shape styles. I’ve played the section on shape styles of the LayOut Essentials video several times and I still don’t quite get it.

Here’s what I’d like to have. I’d like all my shapes (lines, circles, boxes) to have a simple black outline with no fill and no pattern. I tried setting that up using the Shape Styles with 0% opacity in the fill color window and 100% opacity in the stroke color window, thinking that will be the default for any new shapes drawn. However, as soon as I select a shape and start drawing, the shape is filled. If I select the “fill” button on the shape style, when I draw, the outline is white (i.e. I can’t see anything). If I then select the stroke selection and look at the color window, it says it’s 100% opacity. To make it work, I have to select both the “fill” and “stroke” buttons to get a simple black outline with no fill. Once I un-select the “fill” and “stroke” buttons, it goes back to filled shapes.

Please, show me the way to drawing bliss.

The key here is to activate the tool and then make your Shape Style changes while the tool is active. After you have made the changes you need, File>Save as Template.

Templates save everything pertaining to a LayOut project including Tool settings.

CD

Further on Chris’s suggestion to make a template so you don’t have to make these settings each time you start a new project, make settings for not only shape styles but also for text boxes, labels, and dimensions. Make the settings as desired and place samples on your page so you can see them. These will be deleted prior to saving as a template but it’s good to see they are what you want before you create the template. Also make sure you select the correct paper size to match your projects.

Add things like page borders, title blocks, page numbers, etc. Also create layers based on the types of entities you’ll have in your project. I set the lowest layer for SketchUp model viewports as the active layer so that when I use Send to LayOut and open the template, the first viewport will already be on the correct layer. Save as a template and you’re all set. Of course everything can be changed if needed in the future but you shouldn’t normally have to make changes when you start a new project.

Here’s an example before deleting the sample shapes and text items.

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Thanks Chris and Dave,
I thought it would be related to templates, just like needing a scene to reliably import my SketchUp model to LayOut. So I’ll go the template route.

However, isn’t there a default “global” for shape styles and other entities?

Those settings are specific to the template. When you open LO now and choose a paper size/format, you are just choosing an existing template. The settings are whatever the author of that template selected.

Usually you’ll need more than one scene.

Okay, I get it. I never though of the paper size/format as being a template.

For the simple stuff I’m doing, most likely one scene will be sufficient, but who knows. The shadow?

Anyway, you’re making me smarter every day, and that could be really dangerous :slight_smile:

The thing you select at the start is just a LayOut file as a template. It’s exactly the same idea with whatever template you start with in SketchUp. Those templates are just SketchUp files that might have a person standing at the origin or might just be a blank model space.

If you need more than one view of your model, you’ll need more than on scene.

Uh oh. Maybe I’d better be careful. :wink: