Speed up your work with command aliases

By Ellen Finkelstein

When I give instructions, I usually provide ribbon access instructions for commands, but the quickest way to work is to type command aliases on the command line. You just need to know them. Print out this list and keep it by your computer for a couple of weeks until you learn them. You’ll be amazed at how much faster you work.

ARC	a
BLOCK	b
CIRCLE	c
COPY	co
ERASE	e
EXPLODE	x
EXTEND	ex
FILLET	f
HATCH	h
INSERT	i
LAYER	la
LINE	l
MOVE	m
MEXT	t
OPTIONS	op
PLINE	pl
PROPERTIES	pr
ROTATE	ro
TABLE	tb
TOOLPALETTES	tp
TRIM	tr
UNDO	u
XREF	xr
ZOOM	z

AutoCAD comes with a large number of aliases already made for you. You edit the acad.pgp file to add to these, or change them. The acad.pgp file is a text file and you can edit it directly, but the easiest way is to use the Express Tools ALIASEDIT command.

John Palmer wrote in: “I use PE (polyline edit) when I want to turn a line into a polyline.”

Brian A. Glover wrote in: “Here are a few of the keyboard aliases that I use all of the time:

AS Align Space
CS Change Space
CC Circle (I changed ‘C’ to copy because I copy 100 times a day, and draw maybe 10 circles a week)
CB Copy Base
ET Enclose Text
XX Extrim
QQ Quick Leader
TTF Text-to-Front

I try to use keys close together on the keyboard, or use the same key so I don’t have to take my eyes off the screen when I’m working.”

Gerald Goodlander wrote in: “I changed the following because Copy is used much more than Circle:

CI Circle
C Copy

Do you have your own favorites? Leave a comment and share them with others!

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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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Bill Walker

June 21, 2011 at 10:35 am

Probably a great idea to re-visit this topic, Ellen…I’m always surprised by the number of folks that don’t know about this, especially when the Express Tools Alias Editor makes it so ” less-than-scary “. Of Course, different ” fields ” will have different requirements, but for what I do, I can’t live ( or get anything done quickly )without C : COPY R : RECTANGLE L : LINE M : MOVE etc. It’s so easy to change the aliases…and then back, if you change your mind!

admin

June 21, 2011 at 11:05 am

Bill, thanks for sharing the aliases you use!

Laura M

June 21, 2011 at 1:21 pm

I use “IAT” to insert an external reference

MOHD

June 21, 2011 at 3:21 pm

I use ctrl+l to swich for change to ortho mode

Hans Graveman

June 22, 2011 at 6:42 am

I use HTB for hatchtoback

Dave H

June 29, 2011 at 2:06 am

Great reminder, but it should come with a caution also.

Like just about everything in AutoCAD the interpreter that reads the acad.pgp alias file reads it from the top to the bottom, so it’s good to *never* change any of the original aliases up near the top, but instead follow the instructions in the file and make any user mods at the end (bottom). Since AutoCAD will only use the last command it reads you’ll always be able to undo any changes and not loose what the original one might have been.