The tool ADDSELECTED has been in AutoCAD since ACAD 2011 and It has saved me a lot of time.
Regardless of your current settings, such as Layer, Dim Style, Text Style… You can easily recreate an existing object by simply selecting the object, Right-click and select “Add Selected” from the right-click menu.
In the video below, I create a new dimension and a new center line without knowing what layer or style they have. Even if the object has property overrides such as color, linetype, Linetype Scale… Add Selected will set those properties and start the command for you to create a similar object.
Give it a try and see how much it helps!!
There are some limitations to this command to also be aware of.
If you have objects that were created using the Rectangle tool (alias REC) or Polygon tool (alias POL), the resulting object is a polyline. So the Add Selected tool does not know by what means that polyline was created, so it simply starts the Polyline tool (alias PL).
One other issue that I run into is that if I select a polyline that has global width applied, Add Selected doesn’t apply the width.
If you are interested in a LISP alternative, Kent Cooper put together a LISP that allows for versions of AutoCAD prior to ACAD 2011 to be able to have this command. He even addressed the issue of Polygons and Rectangles. He posted the original code [Here].
And I made a blog post showcasing it [Here]
BTW – One of my first blogs posts is about the ADDSELECTED command back in 2010. Check it out here: https://autocadtips1.com/2010/12/09/add-selected/