Breaking a line into two in AutoCad

You can break a line or other object into two objects without any space between them using the BREAK command in AutoCad.

Here are 5 easy steps to achieve it:

1. Type in BREAK at the command line or select break tool
2. Select the object you wish to break
3. Select First Point Option (F) then
4. Pick the point where you wish divide the object
5. When prompted to specify second break point, type @ and Enter

Note: You probably know that @ means last point picked, so AutoCAD breaks the object at the first point you picked and it becomes two objects. You can’t see the different until you try to select one of them.

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How about if you want to break the line with a specified distance/gap in between? (For this example, we want 100 unit line, 500 unit gap to the second line). We can easily do this by using the “from” command inside of the Break command.

Follow these simple steps below:

1. Type in BREAK at the command line or select break tool
2. Select the object you wish to break
3. Select First Point Option (F) then Enter.
   
4. From and Enter. Then for offset prompt, Type @100,0 and Enter
5. When prompted to specify second break point, type @500,0 and Enter
6. You now have a gap of 500 unit in between the now separate two lines

Note: if you have reference points to pinpoint exact position of the gap, you can also use the mouse & drag to align to the reference lines instead of typing in the exact unit.

Eric Fransen emailed in a nice macro for this that you can put on a toolbar button:

^C^CBREAK;\F;\@;

Alan Praysman sent me a nice AutoLISP routine that he wrote that uses a single click to specify the object and the break point. Because it allows object snaps, you can pick the right point easily. Download the file (zipped).

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Ellen Finkelstein

Ellen Finkelstein is the author of the best-selling AutoCAD & AutoCAD LT Bible, which started with R14. Ellen has written extensively on AutoCAD, including articles for Autodesk’s website and features for AutoCAD’s Help system. Ellen’s first book was AutoCAD For Dummies Quick Reference.

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