Before a block is made from a set of attribute definitions, ATTORDER fixes the order they will be asked for in.
What AttOrder does
The order comes from where the ATTDEFs sit in the drawing database, and a window selection picks them up newest first. So a title block drawn in a sensible order gets its prompts in reverse, and one edited over time gets them in no order at all.
Selecting them one at a time in the right order does work — but on a title block with twenty fields it is a long and unforgiving job, and one misclick means starting again.
How to use it
- Load the routine with
APPLOAD, or put it on your support file search path. - Draw the attribute definitions, before making them into a block.
- Type
ATTORDER. - Choose the definitions in the order you want them prompted.
- Make the block. The prompts follow.
How it works
An attribute definition cannot be moved within the database. There is no reorder operation to call.
What can be done is to copy one onto itself and delete the original, which puts a fresh copy at the end of the database. Do that to each in the order you want and they come out in that order.
Everything about each one is preserved, because it is a genuine copy rather than a rebuilt approximation — position, height, style, justification, the prompt string, the default value and all the mode flags.
Notes and limits
- This is for the stage before the block is made. For attributes in a block that already exists, use
BATTMAN— it reorders them in the definition without any of this. - There is no limit on how many are listed. On a large title block, the ones past the first forty are exactly where the problem usually is.
- Finding nothing is not an error. If no attribute definitions are selected the routine says so and stops, rather than raising an error for something that merely did not match.
- One undo group covers the reorder.
Download and details
| Name | AttOrder — set the order attribute definitions will be prompted in |
| Download | AttOrder.lsp — 6.5 KB, plain AutoLISP source. Downloads directly; no zip to unpack. |
| Type | AutoCAD AutoLISP routine |
| Command | ATTORDER |
| Requires | nothing beyond a CAD platform with AutoLISP. |
| Source size | 6.5 KB, 160 lines |
| Error handling | Yes — a *error* handler restores every system variable it changed, on cancel as well as on error. |
| Undo | The whole operation is wrapped in a single undo group, so one U reverses all of it. |
| Compatibility | AutoCAD (any release with AutoLISP), BricsCAD, ZWCAD, GstarCAD, ProgeCAD and other IntelliCAD-based platforms. AutoCAD LT needs a LISP enabler. No .NET, no ObjectARX, no installer. |
| Author | YZ, August 2026 |
| Licence | Free to use, supplied “as is” with no warranty. |
References
- ATTCLONE LISP — match attribute formatting across a title block
- TAGSHED LISP — convert attribute definitions to plain text
- Title block standards — which fields a title block should carry
- More free AutoLISP routines on this site
- Wisey’s Steel Shapes — free structural steel section drawing program