How do I move all objects of one type to another layer in AutoCAD?

What cadssistant does

1. Makes sure A-ANNO exists, creating it with -LAYER if the layer list doesn't have it, since an entity can't be moved to a layer that isn't there.
2. Selects TEXT and MTEXT on layer 0 with one ssget filter.
3. Rewrites the layer of each entity in one AutoLISP pass and replies with the count. Entities inside blocks are not touched.

The same task in AutoLISP

(progn
  (setq ss (ssget "_X" '((0 . "TEXT,MTEXT") (8 . "0"))) i 0)
  (if ss
    (repeat (sslength ss)
      (setq ed (entget (ssname ss i)) i (1+ i))
      (entmod (subst (cons 8 "A-ANNO") (assoc 8 ed) ed))))
  (if ss (sslength ss) 0))

Create A-ANNO first with the LAYER command if it doesn't exist yet. Returns the number of entities moved.

Good to know

• "Everything red" means colour 1 by entity override: (62 . 1) in the filter. Objects that are red because their layer is red are BYLAYER and don't match; say "on red layers" for those.
• Say "and set them to BYLAYER" to also clear colour and linetype overrides in the same pass.

More in edit in bulk

• How do I change the height of all text in an AutoCAD drawing at once?
• How do I replace one block with another throughout an AutoCAD drawing?
• How do I delete everything on a layer and purge it in AutoCAD?
• How do I rename many layers at once in AutoCAD?