This is an oldie, but popular goodie and question from this blog.
http://autodesk.blogs.com/between_the_lines/2009/01/starbacks-bbq-floor-space-planning-with-autocad-fields.html - StarBacks BBQ Floor Space Planning with AutoCAD FIELDS

So I love barbeque. People that know me can attest to this fact and I have cooked barbeque baby back ribs all over the world, even in Germany where I was paid in fine beer and compliments. Anyways I wanted to quickly demonstrate a valuable method to show the area of a Hatch object automatically as well as include the areas in a table, then with a total and when the hatched areas are changed so are the area values in the table.

So in my faux dream barbeque restaurant “StarBacks” I wanted to show the areas of the customer dining and bar area, prep and pit area this is where the pit smoking of the meats is done with fine oak wood smoke, and then the kitchen area.

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I use the FIELD command and select Object from Field Category and then select the Hatch.

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Now after selecting the Hatch select the Area Property and then format the value to the decimal and precision you want and insert it.

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After doing this for the three areas I now have three Field text objects linked to the areas of the Hatch objects.

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I can create an AutoCAD Table with the TABLE command and then set my titles for the areas.

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Then in the cell I want the areas shown I use the Object from Field Category and select the Field text and Object property of Contents. Now the cell is linked to the Field text that is linked to the area of the Hatch. Got it, good.

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Of course I would like a total of the entire square footage (or meters for those lucky enough to make metric their standard). In the cell I right-click and select Insert > Formula > Equation.

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Now it is just like in Excel and I enter A3+B3+C3 and I get the total of those three cells. I could also use the SUM option.

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And there we go after some formatting of the precision to eliminate the trailing zeros I have a nice table all dynamically updating when the hatched areas update. So when I stretch the dining or bar area to increase space for more people (inevitable) the areas all update.

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Showing the final floor plan and table. You could use this in so many ways such as material planning, retail space allocation, and more. Fields are powerful and you can link them to attributes like lights in a plan and have a table update with the quantity and type of light including cost from the attributed light block. Fields are powerful.

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You can use this same technique for attaching fields to other objects such as showing the length of a polyline.

Cheers,
Shaan

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