Hatch Background Color

Did you know that you can add color to the background of a hatch pattern?  This can help when two areas are similar but have one small difference that you need to graphically display. Select Hatch from the Home tab on the Ribbon as shown.

The contextual hatch pattern ribbon will appear. Select your background color as shown below. Change your background color.

Now you have one hatch pattern with a background color!  You might want to change the transparency while you are there.  To the right of the background fill notice the hatch transparency slider bar.  Simply slide that to the right for a lighter fill and back to the left for the original solid color.

If you already have an existing hatch in your drawing bring up the properies pane (CTRL+1) or right click the hatch and you can perform the same functions as if you were just creating the pattern.