Set the Default Hatch Pattern

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If you have ever used a lot of hatch patterns in a drawing, you’ll understand the frustration of setting a default hatch pattern. Here’s the scenario: Say you use the “SOLID” hatch pattern almost exclusively, so when you are in the hatch pattern dialog box or ribbon you set this hatch pattern as current. The next time you use the hatch command, the “SOLID” hatch pattern is the current hatch pattern and you are happy… But then you close that drawing and come back to it at a later time. When you start the hatch pattern it reverts to the default of “ANSI31” and you have to set the default to “SOLID” again…

This is a frustrating everyday annoyance that has only one solution. And that is to add a “setvar” for this in your acad.lsp file if you have one.

The system variable is called HPNAME (Hatch Pattern NAME)

Beware: When you change this variable from the command line, you are prompted to enter the NAME of the hatch pattern that you want to set as the default but you have no way of navigating to see what hatch patterns are available. So you have to know the name prior to starting the command.
This variable is not store in the registry or in the drawing. That’s why it always resets to ANSI31. So if you want to add a line to your acad.lsp file it will look like this:
(setvar “HPNAME”  “SOLID”)

If you do not plan on using an acad.lsp upon the startup of AutoCAD, the quickest way to set the default hatch pattern is not to use the command “HPNAME” in the command line. The fastest way to simply start the HATCH command or H <enter> and then select the hatch pattern from either the dialog box or ribbon.