Wipeout

I am working in the new 2007 version, after several years away from AutoCAD
due to work assignments. I need to use the WIPEOUT command, but I'm not
familiar with it, and something is going wrong.

I need to blank out behind a detour road sign so that it's readable over
railroad tracks. I used PEDIT to convert the outer lines of the sign to a
polyline for the wipeout outline. I set frames to no, and used the polygon
option to select the exisitng polygon.

There are about 5 offset lines around the border of the sign. Then, there's
the "DETOUR" letters (drawn as polylines, not typed as text) and an arrow in
the middle. I selected the letters and the arrow and changed their Draw
Order to "Bring to Front." The only thing that displays is the outermost
line around the border of the sign. The other 3 or 4 sets of lines, the
letters, and the arrow do not display, though they will highlight if I run
the mouse across them.

I looked through the book I have (Sham Tickoo's Autocad 2007: a
Problem-Solving Approach ), the helpfiles, and a few sites online today, but
can't find anything in-depth about what's allowed and what's not allowed
about the command. All I can find is the procedure to follow. All of the
troubleshooting deals with the wipeout polygons not plotting properly.

Is there something specific I'm doing wrong, or am I going about this
completly backwards?

Thanks!

 

ARE YOU USING PAPERPSACE?

 

First of all Susannah, NICE POST! Thorough, articulate, pretty complete. How
refreshing!

A work-around, if all else fails, would be to add some "Z" to the stuff you
want to see. Then, you would have to remember to be careful about snapping
to them.....

See Longshots reply.

 

Sorry for the delay in responding.

At the time, I was not working on this in paperspace. It was
something in modelspace that needed covering. I did get it working,
though now, I'm not too sure how.

However, now I am working in paperspace creating a new title block for
the work group, and I've run into the same problem, trying to get the
title block to show. When I highlight the titleblock, I don't have
the Draw Order option available, and that had worked for me a few
times in model space. Neither the helpfiles nor my book mention a
distinction between using the WIPEOUT command in modelspace or in
paperspace. Does it not work in paperspace?

Thank you.