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1. If you inadvertently
start a command that you don’t want, press Esc. The
command-line prompt returns.
2. If you are saving a
drawing for the first time, the Save Drawing As dialog box
appears. Down the left side of the dialog box are several
buttons to help you find a location to save drawings more
quickly. Together, these buttons are called the Places list.
In a nice touch, you can reorder the buttons in the Places
list. Just drag any button to a new location.
3. You can choose Window
> Close All to close all open drawings. If any have unsaved
changes, AutoCAD prompts you to save the changes. If you
installed the Express Tools (see Appendix A for details), you
can choose Express > File tools > Quick Exit, which
closes all open drawings (prompting you to save ifnecessary)
and then exits AutoCAD. You can also choose Express > File
tools >
Close All Drawings to close
all drawings without exiting AutoCAD. You are prompted to save
any unsaved changes.
4. Name your templates in a
way that clearly differentiates them from regular drawings.
You may want drawings set up for each of the standard paper
sizes (A through E), with a title block in each. Useful names
might be tb-a.dwt, tb-b.dwt (tb meaning title block), and so
on.
5. If a dialog box has a
question mark (?) icon in the top-right corner, click it to
6. Switching from the mouse
to the keyboard and back is time-consuming. In
7. You can also press the
Spacebar at the Command: prompt to repeat a command
8. If you create a toolbar
button that executes a customized set of actions, rightclick
9.
The Begin/End and Mark/Back options of the UNDO command are
useful when you are
trying something new and want to be able to undo a whole
series of commands in one UNDO command in case things don’t
work out as planned.
10. You can type @ at the
first prompt of any drawing command to indicate the
11. Turn on NumLock on your
keyboard and use the numerical pad for typing in
12. You can choose either
polar snap or grid snap (switch between them) by rightclicking
13. If you are working with
a small snap spacing and the dot grid is too dense, set
14. Many users like to work
with three or four running object snaps on at once, such as
endpoint, midpoint, center, and intersection. If you can’t
find the object snap you want because you have several object
snaps near each other, press the Tab key to cycle through the
object snaps, one by one, until you find the one that you
want.
15. When using point
filters, you do not need to use existing coordinates for both
16. You can use most object
snaps with construction lines and rays. (You can't use
17. You can also create a
circle tangent to other objects by using the 2-point (2P) or
18. If you have many filled
objects in your drawing, AutoCAD may need to take
19. You can use the hatch
feature to fill in any object with a solid fill, with a great
20. If you are using points
for temporary reference, instead of erasing them, you can
21. In a very large drawing,
you can create views as soon as you create the title block
— for example, one for each quadrant of the drawing, and
another for the title block lettering. This helps you move
quickly from one section of the drawing to another. As you
determine the need for more specific views, you can add them.
22. Many users commonly use
one viewport to display the entire drawing and the
23. The grid does not have
to be on, but it helps you get your bearings when
24. After creating a new,
rotated UCS such as the one in the previous exercise, type
25. Use snap points and
object snaps as much as possible in an isometric drawing.
26. Polar coordinate display
is very helpful while drawing isometrically. The
27. When you move an object,
choose an object snap on the object or a nearbyrelated
28. An alternative to using
Remove to deselect objects is to press Shift and deselect
30. Most mirror lines are
orthogonal. Therefore, after you specify the first mirror
31. If you need to create a
number of copies of an object along a straight path, use a one-column
or one-row array instead of the COPY command. It’s faster
and easier.
32. While using the TRIM
command, you can switch to extending objects by
33. Generally, you pick the
objects to be trimmed individually. You cannot use
Windows to select them.
However, you can use the Fence object-selection
method. AutoCAD trims the
side of the object that the fence line crosses. You
can also press Enter at the
Select cutting edges: prompt. Then, when you select
the objects you want to
trim, AutoCAD automatically uses the cutting edge
nearest your pick point. You
can use this feature to trim to multiple cutting
edges without having to
specify each cutting edge.
34. If the object you want
to use for the cutting edge is already selected before you
start the TRIM command,
AutoCAD deselects it. At the Select cutting edges …
prompt, you can type p „p
to reselect that object.
35. While using the EXTEND
command, you can switch to trimming objects by
pressing the Shift key as
you select objects to trim.
36. Usually, you want to
stretch at an orthogonal angle. If you are going to stretch
by picking, turn ORTHO on.
Object snaps, polar tracking, and snap mode are
other helpful drawing aids
for stretching.
37. Sometimes you may want
to break an object into two pieces at a point, without
erasing any part of the
object. Use the Break at Point button on the Modify
toolbar to help you easily
break an object at a point. After selecting the object,
pick where you want to break
the object at the Specify second break point or
[First point]: prompt. The
two new objects look the same as before on the
screen —until you select
one of the objects. To break objects at a point,
AutoCAD uses @, which always
signifies the last point entered, to specify the
second break point. Thus,
the first and second break points are the same.
38. You can also press the
spacebar to cycle through the grip editing modes. For
example, to move an object,
press the spacebar once.
39. The Properties palette
has its own undo function. Right-click the item that you
changed in the Properties
palette and choose Undo. Multiple levels of undo are
available.
40. To create several new
layers at once, click New and type all the layer names
you want, separated by
commas. If you want a new layer to have the same color
and/or linetype as an
existing layer — which is very common — choose that
existing layer and click
New. The new layer will inherit the properties of the
selected layer. You can then
make any changes you want.
41. Both the off and frozen
states make layers invisible. AutoCAD introduced the
frozen and thawed layer
states to reduce regeneration time — and that’s the
main difference between
On/Off and Thawed/Frozen layer visibility options.
However, today’s computers
are faster, and AutoCAD has since introduced
several ways to avoid
regeneration while panning and zooming — such as
Aerial View, Zoom Dynamic,
and real-time zooming and panning. Also,
remember that thawing a
layer causes a regeneration, whereas turning a layer
back on only causes a
redraw. As a result, you might actually save a
regeneration by using On/Off
instead of Thawed/Frozen.
42. When you work with a
large number of layers, think carefully about how you
name them. Naming layers in
groups is common. For example, if you have
several text layers, you
could name them Text Title, Text Notes, and Text
Schedule. A systematic
layer-naming scheme makes it easy to filter the layers
you need, which in turn
makes it easy to make changes to groups of layers.
43. You can modify more than
one layer at a time. In the Layer Properties Manager
dialog box, right-click and
choose Select All to choose all the layers. Choose
Clear All to deselect all
layers. You can choose a range of layers by clicking the
first in the range, pressing
Shift, and clicking the last in the range. Finally, you
can choose individual layers
by pressing Ctrl for each additional layer. Changes
you make to color, linetype,
or lineweight affect all the selected layers.
44. When purging objects in
the Purge dialog box, you can select more than one
item at a time to purge. To
select an additional item, press Ctrl as you click. To
select a contiguous group of
items, click the first item, press and hold Shift, and
select the last item in the
group.
45. You can always change an
object’s color back to ByLayer, using the same
Color Control drop-down list
you used to change the color originally.
46. You can always change an
object’s linetype back to ByLayer, using the same
Linetype Control drop-down
list you used to change the linetype originally.
47. The global linetype
scale is held in the LTSCALE system variable. You can
change the linetype scale by
typing LTSCALE at the command line and typing
a scale.
48. Remember that you can
set the point display by choosing Format>Point Style.
An easy-to-see point style
is especially useful for the DIVIDE command.
Specify the point style
before using the command.
49. By default, text is
left-justified. To change the text’s justification,
right-click
and choose Justify at the
Specify start point of text or [Justify/Style]: prompt.
AutoCAD responds with this
bewildering prompt: Enter an option
[Align/Fit/Center/Middle/Right/TL/TC/TR/ML/MC/MR/BL/BC/BR]:
However,
if you know the option
abbreviation of the justification you want, you can use it
at the Specify start point
of text or [Justify/Style]: prompt.
50. The most common way to
edit single-line text is to use the DDEDIT command.
Double-click the text.
However, if you start the DDEDIT command instead by
choosing
Modify>Objects>Text >Edit (or typing ddedit „p on
the command
line), you are prompted to
select an annotation object. Select the object and the
Edit Text window opens. When
you finishing editing the text and click OK, you
are again prompted to select
an object. The command continues to prompt you
for objects until you press
Enter at the prompt. Use this method when you want
to edit several lines of
text.
51. To create an exponent
(or superscript) in the Multiline Text Editor, type a
number and then a carat, as
in 2^. Select the number and the carat and click the
Stack/Unstack button. To
create a subscript, type a carat, and then the number,
as in ^2, and stack it.
52. To indent an entire
paragraph in the Multiline Text Editor, right-click in the
editor and choose Indents
and Tabs. Then use both first line and paragraph
indentation. (AutoCAD 2004
only)
53. It's easier to set
indentation and tabs on the Multiline Editor's ruler than in
the
dialog box. Drag the first
line indent marker (the top triangle at the left of the
ruler) or the paragraph
indent marker (the bottom triangle) to the left or right.
To set a tab, click on the
ruler where you want the tab. To delete a tab, drag a
tab marker off the ruler.
(AutoCAD 2004 only)
54. When the Multiline Text
Editor is open, you can change the width of the Mtext
object by dragging on the
right edge of the ruler. You can also change the width
of the editor itself by
dragging on the right edge of the editor box. (AutoCAD
2004 only)
55. When you draw in three
dimensions, you need to figure out how to combine
three-dimensional models
with two-dimensional text. You can use the
HIDETEXT system variable to
choose whether you want text to act like a 3D or
a 2D object. Use the On
setting, the default, if you want text to be hidden behind
other objects and to hide
other objects when you use the HIDE command, such
as other 3D objects. If you
use the Off setting, text will not hide other objects, or
be hidden, unless it has a
thickness. (See Chapter 21 for more on the HIDE
command and adding a
thickness to objects.)
56. Strangely enough, if you
don’t have any misspelled words in your drawing, you
cannot open the Check
Spelling dialog box. AutoCAD simply issues the
Spelling Check Complete
message. The trick is to insert a misspelled word and
then use the SPELL command.
You can erase or correct the word afterward.
57. Another way to edit the
custom dictionary is to open the file directly with a text
editor. The AutoCAD custom
dictionary is called sample.cus. To find
sample.cus, choose
Tools>Options and click the File tab. Double-click Text
Editor, Dictionary, and Font
File Names. Double-click Custom Dictionary File.
Click the path list to view
the location of sample.cus.
58. If you often turn layers
on and off (or freeze and thaw them), you may want to
create a separate dimension
layer for each layer of drawing data. For example, if
you dimension an electrical
layer that you turn off regularly, you can have a
special Dim-elec dimension
layer that you can turn off with the electrical layer.
59. Before dimensioning,
create a text style for your dimensions. Set the height of
the text style to zero. You
can then set the text height when you create the
dimension style. If you do
specify a fixed height in your text style, that height
overrides any height you
specify in the dimension style.
60. Make it standard
practice to use object snaps for choosing extension line
origins. The point you pick
specifies the definition point that determines the
final measurement. Also,
proper association of dimensions with their objects
depends on the points you
specify. Accurate dimensioning requires accurate
drawings and therefore exact
specification of the points you want to use for the
dimensions.
61. For best results, turn
ORTHO on while trying to drag the dimension line or the
dimension text. Polar
tracking also works well.
62. When defining the
arrowheads in a dimension style, you can set a different
arrow just for leaders.
Choose the arrow you want from the Leader drop-down
list.
63. When trying to fit
dimension text, lines, and arrows in a narrow space,
AutoCAD also uses the gap to
calculate the minimum space required on either
side of the dimension text.
Reducing the gap can therefore help fit more of the
dimension elements between
the extension lines.
64. Double-click any
dimension to open the Properties palette where you can
change the properties of
that dimension.
65. You can create a new
dimension style from an existing dimension on the fly by
using the Properties
palette. Double-click a dimension to open the Properties
palette. Click the arrow
next to the type of change you want to make and make
the change. After you’re
done, right-click in the drawing area and choose Dim
Style>Save as New Style.
The New Dimension Style dialog box opens so that
you can give the dimension
style a name. Click OK.
66. You can compare a
dimension style with the current dimension style. To do this,
follow these steps:
Choose Dimension Style from
the Dimension toolbar and choose Compare.
AutoCAD opens the Compare
Dimension Styles dialog box.
In the Compare and With
drop-down boxes, choose the two dimension styles
you want to compare. AutoCAD
lists the differences by system variable. For
more information about
system variables used in dimensions, see the sidebar, “Dimension system
variables.”
67. Click the Copy button at
the right side of the Compare Dimension Styles dialog
box to copy the comparison
to the clipboard. You can then paste it into another
document. For example, you
might want to e-mail the file to a client.
68. You can change any line
or arc into a polyline. Start PEDIT and choose a line or
arc. AutoCAD responds:
Object selected is not a polyline. Do you want to turn
it into one? <Y>.
Press Enter to accept the default. AutoCAD turns the object
into a polyline. (In AutoCAD
2004, you can change the new PEDITACCEPT
system variable to 1 to
suppress this prompt and automatically turn non-polyline
objects that you select for
the PEDIT command to polylines.) You can use this
technique to turn a series
of connected lines and arcs into a polyline. First, turn
one of the objects into a
polyline as I just explained. Then use the Join option
and select the other objects
individually or by a selection window. After you
finish object selection,
AutoCAD tells you how many segments were added to
the polyline. In order to
create a polyline in this way, the individual lines and
arcs must connect exactly
end to end. However, if you use the Multiple option,
explained following the
current list, you can join lines that are not exactly
touching.
69. Create a separate layer
for hatch patterns. You may want to turn off or freeze
your hatch layer to reduce
visual clutter or assist in selecting objects. Hatches
are also typically a
different color than the model you are hatching.
70. When hatching, while you
are in your drawing before or after picking points or
selecting objects, you can
right-click to open a very useful shortcut menu.
Choose from the following
options on the shortcut menu. This shortcut menu
enables you to manage the
hatch boundary without returning to the dialog box.
Enter: Returns you to the
dialog box.
Undo Last Select/Pick:
Undoes your most recent object selection or point
pick.
Clear All: Undoes all your
picks/object selections.
Pick Internal Point:
Switches to picking of internal points.
Select Objects: Switches to
selection of objects.
Normal Island Detection:
Sets island detection to normal mode.
Outer Island Detection: Sets
island detection to outer mode.
Ignore Island Detection:
Sets island detection to ignore mode.
Preview: Previews the hatch.
71. When creating a new
multiline style, first set as current the multiline style that
is
the most similar to the one
you want to create.
72. When defining the offset
for multiline style elements, you define offsets that are
above or below the
multiline’s pick points. Think of the multiline as being
drawn horizontally to the
right to help you visualize what above and below
mean.
73. To add your own title
block, create it as a drawing and save it in the \Templates
folder. (To find the
location of this folder, choose Tools>Options and click the
Files tab. Double-click
Drawing Template Settings and then Drawing Template
File Location.) Notice that
most of the templates in that folder have
corresponding drawings that
are used in the Layout Wizard. If you have a
template that you use for a
title block, open a new drawing using that template
and save it as a drawing in
the \Templates folder, using the same name as the
template. (It has a .dwg
file name extension, however.)
74. To cycle from viewport
to viewport while in model space, press Ctrl+R.
75. Another way to turn off
a viewport is to select it (by clicking its border while in
paper space), and then
right-click and choose Display Viewport Objects>No.
Choose Yes to display the
viewport objects again.
76. If you create dimensions
in a viewport in paper space and then zoom or pan in
that viewport, the objects
and the dimension get out of sync. Use the
DIMREGEN command on the
command line to reset the dimension to match its
object.
77. To avoid inadvertently
plotting to a Windows system printer when you should
be plotting to a plotter,
you can hide the display of Windows system printers in
the Plot and Page Setup
dialog boxes. Because these printers won’t appear on
the list of plotters, you
can’t plot to them. To hide system printers, choose
Tools>Options and click
the Plotting tab. At the bottom-left corner of the dialog
box, check Hide System
Printers and click OK.
78. If you create a number
of block definitions that you do not end up using in the
drawing, use the PURGE
command to delete them. This reduces the size of the
drawing file.
79. When you save a drawing
that you plan to insert as a block, use the BASE
command to create the
insertion point. By default the base point is 0,0,0. By
setting the base point to
another point in the drawing, such as an object snap on
one of the objects, you can
control how that drawing is inserted.
80. If you really don’t
know where the file is, or are not even sure of its name, use
the Windows Find feature.
Choose Start>Find/Search>Files or Folders. In the
screen that appears, set the
criteria for the file. For example, you could find all
drawings starting with the
letter C by typing c*.dwg in the Named text box.
From the resulting list,
choose the drawing you want and drag it onto your
drawing using the same steps
listed previously.
81. The first procedure when
working with attributes is to draw the individual
objects that are to make up
the block. The exception is when you want to create
attributes without creating
any other objects in the block. You might do this to
extract attributes that
apply to the drawing as a whole. If the block already
exists, explode it and then
redefine the block, adding the attributes.
82. When defining an
attribute, the Value item is used for setting a default value.
You can use the value to
clarify a format that should be followed when entering
information. For example,
you could set the value of a date to dd/mm/yy so that
users know how to format the
date.
83. If you are creating many
blocks with similar attributes, you can copy just the
attributes, modify them as
just described, place them near other objects, and
then create the blocks. This
way, you don’t have to define all the attributes from
scratch.
84. If the order of the
attribute prompts is important, don’t use a window to select
the attributes — select
them in the order in which you want the prompts to
appear. You can then use a
crossing or window box to select the rest of the
objects to be included in
the block. The order of the attribute prompts will be
important if you are taking
the data for the attributes from a listing — perhaps a
spreadsheet that you have
printed out. It will be much easier to insert the
attribute values if the
prompts follow the order of the printed document you are
using.
85. When you add properties
to the listing in the Block Attribute Manager, resize
the dialog box so that you
can see all the columns.
86. If you export attributes
in tab delimited format, you can open the Multiline Text
Editor and click Import Text
to import the output file into your drawing. You
can also open the output
file, copy it to the clipboard, and paste it into your
drawing. The Import Text
method enables you to format the text as you would
any multiline text but may
take some experimenting to align the columns. You
cannot format the text you
import using the clipboard method, but it is nicely
lined up in columns.
87. In the Xref Manager
(Insert>Xref Manager), you can change the width of the
columns in List View by
placing the cursor on a column dividing line until it
changes to a two-headed
arrow. Then drag in either direction.
88. The XCLIP command
enables you to create a border in an xref and hides any
part of the xref outside the
border. You can also clip blocks.
89. If you want to create an
index for an existing drawing, click OK once to return
to the Save Drawing As
dialog box. Click Cancel. In other words, you don’t
have to actually save the
drawing to set up the index, which is controlled by the
INDEXCTL system variable.
90. This may be obvious, but
the first principle of managing xrefs is to keep them
simple. Overly complex
nested configurations are hard to manage, no matter
what you do.
91. If you set the XREFCTL
system variable to 1 (by default it is set to 0),
AutoCAD makes a copy of all
xref activity for your current drawing in an
ASCII text file. You can
read the log to troubleshoot problems that may occur.
AutoCAD places the log file
in the same folder as your drawing and uses your
drawing name with the .xlg
file name extension. This file can get long.
Therefore, once in a while,
you should delete all or part of the file.
92. To get the Data View
window out of the way, you can dock it. Right-click in the
Data View window’s toolbar
area and choose Allow Docking. Then drag the
window to the right edge of
your screen (assuming your dbConnect window is
on the left side of your
screen).
93. If you want, you can
copy your formatting, including sorting, to the clipboard
and paste it into your DBMS.
To do this, select the records you want to export.
To export the entire
database, click the grid header. Then right-click any cell
and choose Copy. Open your
DBMS and click Paste from the Standard toolbar.
94. When you use View Linked
Objects, the selected objects form a selection set.
You can then use the results
with other commands that allow prior selection of
objects. For commands that
you must execute before selecting objects, type p „p
at the Select objects:
prompt to use the Previous option and get the selection set.
95. When exporting links,
you are prompted to select objects. You can select the
entire drawing (type all
„p at the Select Objects: prompt) and AutoCAD finds
just the linked objects.
96. If you want to create
curved shapes in 3D space, you can create 2D polylines
with a width and then add a
thickness and an elevation. Elevation and thickness
are both explained in the
next section.
97. Because it is easy to
forget the current thickness, unless you are drawing a
number of objects with the
same thickness, it is usually safer to draw objects
with no thickness and then
change the thickness. If you do change the current
thickness, don’t forget to
change it back to zero when you are finished creating
the 3D objects.
98. In the Viewpoint Presets
dialog box (View>3D Views>Viewpoint Presets),
there’s an art to using
the two dials to set the view angle that you want. If you
click the inside border of
either one, close to the indicator needle, AutoCAD
sets the angle based on
exactly where you clicked. This results in uneven
degrees, such as 47.6.
However, if you click the outside border of either image,
or the numbers themselves,
AutoCAD rounds the angle to the value in the
segment.
99. If you want to create
curved shapes in 3D space, you can create 2D polylines
with a width and then add a
thickness and an elevation. Elevation and thickness
are both explained in the
next section.
100. 3D orbit can be used as
a substitute for DVIEW.
101. You can use 3D orbit
transparently, that is, in the middle of another command.
Just start a command, type
'3dorbit „p, rotate your model as you want, and press
Esc or Enter to close 3D
orbit. AutoCAD then continues the command in
progress.
102. For faster performance,
select only the objects you want to view with 3D orbit
before starting the command.
Objects you did not select disappear while you are
in 3D orbit mode. Of course,
they reappear as soon as you leave 3D orbit mode.
103. Specifying the proper
coordinates for camera and target location in the
3DORBIT command can be
difficult in 3D. You may find it helpful to place a
point object at the two
desired locations before starting the command. You can
then use the Node object
snap to pick the camera and target positions you want.
104. If you want, you can
create your own block and name it dviewblock. Create it
with X, Y, and Z dimensions
of 1. When you press Enter at the Select objects or
<use DVIEWBLOCK>:
prompt, AutoCAD looks for dviewblock and uses it to
display the results of the
perspective view settings.
105. When using the DVIEW
command options, if you want to set the angle in the
XY plane first and limit the
effect of cursor movement to that change, you need
to use the Toggle suboption
to get to the Enter angle in XY plane from X axis:
prompt. After you set the
angle in the XY plane, the suboption ends. Start the
Camera option again to set
the angle from the XY plane.
106. While it is common to
choose a target point on one of the objects in your
drawing, often you want the
camera point to be off the objects so that you are
looking at the objects from
a certain distance and angle. To pick the camera
point, choose
Format>Point Style (before starting DVIEW) and choose an
easily visible point style.
Decide what elevation you want, type elev „p, and set a
new elevation. From plan
view, choose Point from the Draw toolbar and pick a
point. The point is created
on the current elevation. Then use the Node object
snap to snap to the point
when specifying the camera point in the Points option.
107. Figure 22-44 shows the
result of SOLPROF after also freezing the layer that
SOLPROF created containing
the hidden parts of the model. In this case, the
layer was named PH-159. Look
for the h, which stands for hidden. The last part
of the layer name is the
handle of the object you are profiling and so differs for
each object. As soon as you
have a separate layer for the hidden portion of the
model, you can modify that
layer’s color and/or linetype to show the hidden
lines in a contrasting color
or linetype.
108. It often helps to
prepare for a complex 3D face by creating 2D objects for some
or all of the faces. You can
then use Endpoint object snaps to pick the points of
the 3D face. Place these 2D
objects on a unique layer, such as Frames or Const.
109. In order to easily draw
a polyface mesh with PFACE, draw 2D objects as a
guide for picking vertices.
Then you can use object snaps to pick the vertices.
Also, for polyface meshes on
more than one plane, draw a diagram that numbers
the vertices. This helps you
specify which vertices make up which face.
110. If you have several
adjoining objects that you would like to use as one path
curve, remember that you can
use PEDIT to change lines and arcs to polylines
and join them together.
111. The DELOBJ system
variable determines whether objects used by EXTRUDE
to make other objects are
retained. By default, they are deleted. Therefore, when
you use a 2D object to make
a solid, the 2D object is deleted. If you make a
mistake during extrusion and
notice it later — after it’s impractical to undo
several commands you want to
keep — when you erase the solid, you have no
2D object to use to
re-create the solid. (You can put such objects on a layer that
can be turned off, in case
you need them again.) Set DELOBJ to zero (0) to
keep objects used to create
other objects. On the other hand, if you are sure
about what you are doing,
keeping DELOBJ at 1 avoids having to erase
unwanted 2D objects in your
drawing.
112. You can also use the
UNION command with 2D regions, either for 2D drawings
or as a basis for a 3D
model.
113. You can use INTERFERE
for troubleshooting and visualizing a complex
drawing. For example, you
can use INTERFERE to determine which solids
need to be subtracted from
other solids. The new objects are created on the
current layer. You can
change the current layer before using INTERFERE to
help you more clearly
distinguish the new solid you create.
114. The SECTION command
creates the region on the current layer. Make the
current layer color
different from the object layer color so that the region is
clearly visible.
115. Sometimes creating an
object in the XY plane and then rotating it afterward is
easier. In other words, you
may create an object in the wrong plane on purpose
and use ROTATE3D later to
properly place it.
116. The trick when aligning
in 3D is to properly visualize the parts. It helps to hide
the drawing first, as you
did in the exercise. Also, take the time to find the UCS
and a viewpoint that make
the points you are specifying easy to see and pick.
117. In most cases, white
light is fine. You can get some unexpected results when
using colored lights on
colored objects.
118. Use a name that makes
it clear that the light is a point light. Keep the name
short. A simple sequence of
P1, P2 is often sufficient. However, you could also
use P-overhd and P-door or
something similar.
119. Set the intensity to
zero (0) to turn a light off. You can use this technique to
switch a scene from a day
view to a night view or to experiment with different
lights without having to
delete them.
120. To turn the distant
light off, set the intensity to zero (0). You can use this
technique to switch a scene
from a day view to a night view or to experiment
with different lights.
121. For your practice
renderings while you are creating lights and materials, turn
shadows off in the Render
dialog box. Shadows significantly add to rendering
time, and you’ll do a lot
of waiting. When you are satisfied with the other
settings, turn shadows on.
122. If you don’t find the
exact material you want, import the closest one you can
find. You can then create a
new material based on that material. The next
section explains how to edit
existing materials.
123. Attaching materials by
layer can be a very efficient method. It requires some
planning in advance. For
example, if you have a block that is a chair, and if you
create it so that the legs
are on one layer and the seat and back are on a second
layer, then you can easily
attach a wood-like material to the legs and a
decorative pattern to the
seat and back.
124. Knowing the appropriate
scale of an image before inserting it is often hard.
When you move the cursor at
the Specify scale factor or [Unit] <1>: prompt,
you can see a bounding box
that will help you visualize the resulting size of the
image.
125. To dock the
DesignCenter, right-click the title bar and choose Allow
Docking.
Then drag the DesignCenter
window to the left or right of your AutoCAD
window. To collapse the
DesignCenter down to its title bar when you're not
using it, right-click the
title bar and choose Auto-hide; whenever you move the
mouse cursor off the
DesignCenter it collapses. Just move the cursor back onto
the title bar to expand it
again. Sometimes the DesignCenter docks when you
are trying to drag it past
the AutoCAD application window. To avoid unwanted
docking, either uncheck
Allow Docking on its title bar or press Ctrl as you drag.
(AutoCAD 2004 only)
126. If you have docking
enabled, but want to drag the Tool Palettes window without
docking it, press Ctrl as
you drag. (AutoCAD 2004 only)
127. If you just finished
associating a standards file with a drawing, you can click
Check Standards in the
Configure Standards dialog box.
128. When translating layers
in the Layer Translator dialog box, you can select more
than one layer from the
Translate From list by pressing Ctrl for each additional
layer. You can select a
contiguous group of layers by clicking the first layer in
the group, holding Shift and
selecting the last layer in the group. Then select the
layer from the Translate To
list that you want to map that group of layers to and
click Map. You can also
quickly map all layers with the same name by choosing
Map Same.
129. One low-tech way to
keep track of drawings is to keep a book of 8-1/2x11 plots.
Place the drawing name and
date written in large text on a separate layer in the
drawing. Set the Plot
property of the layer to Not Plottable while you work and
for Regular Plotting. Set it
to Plottable for your batch plots. Then, even reduced,
you’ll know the drawing
name when you look at the drawing in the book.
130. In the Reference
Manager (Start>Programs>Autodesk>AutoCAD
2004>Reference Manager),
you can also choose Find and Replace Selected
Paths to change all
references that use a certain saved path and replace them
with a new path. Use this
feature when you have a large number of drawings
that need paths to changed
referenced files.
131. However, if AutoCAD or
your entire computer crashes, you will probably be
left with one or more .ac$
files. A good guideline for erasing .ac$ files is to only
erase those from yesterday
or earlier. Leave today’s alone. If you don’t see the
date and time of the files
in Explorer, choose View>Details.
132. You can attach rendered
images to your drawing if you have saved them as TIF,
TGA, or BMP files. A great
way to do this is to create a floating viewport in
paper space for the rendered
image, letting your clients see not only the regular
drawing but the rendered
result on one sheet of paper. Remember that you can now plot
shaded and rendered images. (AutoCAD 2004 only.)
133. The IMAGEFRAME command
turns off the frame that surrounds all images in
a drawing. Choose
Modify>Object>Image>Frame. Turning off the frame
often
improves the way the image
looks. However, you select an image by clicking its
frame. Therefore, an Off
setting means you cannot select the image, except
when using commands specific
to images, such as TRANSPARENCY,
IMAGEADJUST, and IMAGECLIP.
Don’t turn the frame off until you have
finished editing the image.
You can also select raster images using Quick
Select. Because raster
images are considered to be on the layer that is active
when they are inserted, you
can use Quick Select to select them by layer.
134. The DRAWORDER command
changes the display order of objects, including
raster and OLE objects. (OLE
is discussed later in this chapter.) This command
is very helpful when working
with raster and OLE objects, where you may or
may not want to hide the
other objects in your drawing. You can move an object
to the top or bottom or
change its order in relation to another object — above or
below it. To change an
object’s display order, choose Tools>Display Order and
choose one of the submenu
options. AutoCAD then prompts you to select
objects. Draw order settings
are now saved with the drawing.
135. If you don’t mind a
few steps, you can sometimes get good results importing
large Excel spreadsheets by
way of Microsoft Word, as follows: In Excel, use
Save As to save the
spreadsheet in Text (Tab delimited) format. Insert the file
into Word (choose Text Files
from the Open dialog box’s Files of type dropdown
list). Select the entire
file and choose Table>Convert>Text to Table.
Change the Page Setup to
accommodate the large size of the table, using a
custom paper size. Format
the table if you want. Copy it to the clipboard. In
AutoCAD, choose Paste on the
Standard toolbar. (AutoCAD 2004 expands the
ability to import large
spreadsheets, but you may still find this tip helpful.)
136. If you try to use HIDE
on a 3D model that contains OLE objects, the OLE
objects disappear! The
solution is to insert them in paper space. You can then
hide the 3D model in one
floating viewport and display the OLE object in
another.
137. You can hide a 3D view
and copy and paste the view into another application.
However, you cannot copy and
paste a rendered view. To bring a rendered view
into another application,
save it as an image and import it. You can freeze any layers
that you don’t want to include, such as dimension and text
layers.
138. The eTransmit feature
is essentially the same as Pack and Go in Microsoft
Office, packing together all
associated files with your drawing so that you can
e-mail it to colleagues,
clients, customers, and so on.
139. Because you don’t
need the transmittal file after you have sent it (you already
have all the files), you can
put it in the Windows\Temp file or another location
where you place files that
you will delete.
140. You can use the Web
toolbar, to navigate back and forth
between previously visited
Web sites, drawings, and other locations.
141. You can resize the
Publish Drawing Sheets dialog box by dragging on its lower
right
corner. (AutoCAD 2004 only)
142. If you are creating a
multi-sheet DWF file and are not in the habit of renaming
your layout tabs, you might
find that your sheet names are rather unhelpful.
Handwheel-Layout1 doesn’t
explain very much. To rename a layout tab, rightclick
it and choose Rename. In the
Rename Layout dialog box, enter a new
name and click OK. (AutoCAD
2004 only)
143. You can print/plot
drawings from Autodesk Express Viewer without having
AutoCAD. The print options
are somewhat like those in Microsoft Word
because they take into
account the fact that the DWF file can have many pages.
Click the Print button to
open the Print dialog box, as shown in Figure 28-19.
(AutoCAD 2004 only)
144. On the Autodesk Express
Viewer toolbar’s drop-down list of sheets in the
drawing set, each layout is
numbered. You can use these numbers to specify
which pages you want to
print. (AutoCAD 2004 only)
145. If you’re not sure of
the command name but know the menu or toolbar item,
execute the command on the
menu or toolbar and then press Esc. AutoCAD
displays the command name on
the command line.
146. You can print out
acad.pgp and tape it up on the wall where you work.
147. An important part of
managing toolbars is finding a place to dock them so that
they don’t take up
valuable real estate on the screen. You can make several
small toolbars and fit them
in the blank spaces next to existing toolbars. The
AutoCAD 2004 Standard
toolbar is shorter than the previous one and gives you
more room for your own
toolbars.
148. If you make a mistake
when editing a toolbar button, it’s easy to correct it. If
you place a red pixel over
an existing black pixel, choose black and redraw the
black pixel. If you place a
red pixel in a wrong spot, choose the Erase tool and
click the pixel.
149. From within a script
file, you can open (and close) other drawings. In this way
you can run a script file on
as many drawings as you want. It’s nice to leave the
last drawing open so that
when you return to see the results, you can see that the
last drawing has been
properly edited. You then feel pretty sure that all the
previous drawings were
similarly edited.
150. You can save any
drawing as an image file and import it into a presentation
program that creates slide
shows, such as Microsoft PowerPoint, Lotus
Freelance Graphics, or Corel
Presentations. You can add text, special effects,
and more to create a
professional slide show.
151. When running a slide
show, you might want to maximize the screen area by
reducing menu and
command-line space. You can unload your menu, thus
quickly dismissing toolbars
from the screen. Drag the top border of the
command line area to reduce
the number of lines of text on the command line to
Remember that when you
unload the menu, you have no menus available.
152. When creating a slide
library using the SLIDELIB utility you create a text file
containing the names of the
slide files. SLIDELIB can read a listing created
using DOS’s dir command
with the /b parameter, which creates a simple listing
of just the file names.
Therefore, you can place all the slide files in a folder and
redirect the dir listing to
a file. For example, you can create a list named
ab30sld.lst by typing the
following at the DOS prompt: dir *.sld /b >ab30sld.lst
153. If your linetype
definition will include both dashes and dots, you’ll get
best
results if you start a
linetype definition with the dash. Starting the definition
with a dash is a matter of
aesthetics, perhaps, but such a line connects better to
other lines.
154. When creating a complex
linetype that includes shapes, you need to allow for
the space that the shape
takes up. In the example, note that the space after the
shape (created with the -.5
code) is larger than the space before it (created with
the -.25). This is largely a
matter of trial and error, but if you know the shape
definition well, you can
make a good estimate. When you go back and change
the linetype definition (if
your first trial was an error), don’t forget to reload the
linetype (by using the Load
option).
155. Sometimes you want a
menu item to switch to another menu item. This is called
menu swapping. You could use
this technique to create a menu that swaps to an
image menu that inserts
commonly used blocks. However, the new Tool
Palettes (AutoCAD 2004 only)
are another way to accomplish a similar effect.
156. AutoCAD supports
panning and zooming with the IntelliMouse. The
MBUTTONPAN system variable
controls the third button or wheel on your
pointing device. By default,
it is set to 1, which supports panning and zooming.
Set it to 0 to support
definition in the .mnu menu file.
157. The titles of pull-down
POP menus appear as the menu title. Keep these fairly
short to keep the menu
titles from running into each other. Don’t place spaces in
menu title names — it
becomes hard to distinguish where one menu ends and
the next one starts.
158. Although the examples
shown here use both the initial underline to allow for
translation and the
ampersand to allow for keyboard entry, you don’t need to
use these if you don’t
want to. When was the last time you used the keyboard to
choose a menu item on a
shortcut menu?
159. The Screen section is
very long. If you don’t use the Screen menu, you can
delete it from acad.mns or
the menu file you are using. Don’t forget to back up
acad.mns, or your own menu,
first.
160. The Visual LISP window
contains a number of tools that make your
programming life simpler.
You can highlight all the code between matching
parentheses. To highlight
from left to right, place the cursor in front of a left
parenthesis and press
Ctrl+Shift+] or simply double-click. To highlight from
right to left (backwards),
place the cursor after a right parenthesis and press
Ctrl+Shift+[ or
double-click.
161. A common practice is to
consolidate all AutoLISP routines in one folder for
ease of use. To do this, you
can create a folder called LISP in any drive or folder
where you keep files that
you create. Then choose Tools>Options. On the Files
tab, expand the Support File
Search Path and click Add. Add the path by typing
it directly in the edit box
or clicking Browse and navigating to it.
162. To locate other ActiveX
functions that create objects, you need to look in the
AutoCAD ActiveX and VBA
Reference. In Visual LISP, choose Help, Visual
LISP Help Topics. From the
Contents tab, double-click ActiveX and VBA
Reference, and then Methods.
You immediately see an alphabetical list with the
A’s displayed. Here are
all the VBA methods that add drawing objects. To
create a Visual LISP
function, add VLA- before the method. For example, to add
a circle, you would use VLA-AddCircle.
163. When typing a function
in the Visual LISP editor, you immediately know if the
function is correct, because
it turns from black to blue as you enter it.
164. You can resize the
module text editor as you would any window. As you start
adding code to the text
editor, you will find it easier to work with a larger
window. Click the Maximize
button to enlarge the text editor to its maximum
size.
165. You can resize the
panes in the VBA window. Place the mouse cursor on the
bar between the panes until
you see the double-headed arrow and drag it either
left or right.
166. You can customize these
colors by choosing Tools>Options from the Visual
Basic menu and then choosing
the Editor Format tab. Choose a type of text and
then choose the desired
color. Click OK.
167. If you think the
Toolbox toolbar has lots of possibilities, right-click the
Toolbox
toolbar and choose
Additional Controls. From the Additional Controls dialog
box, you can choose from
many more controls.
168. There’s an art to
laying out a dialog box so that it is clear and easy to
understand. After a while
you’ll get the hang of it. Pay more attention to the
dialog boxes you use every
day to pick up some design pointers.
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