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AutoCAD 2015 and AutoCAD LT 2015 Bible

The most comprehensive AutoCAD book around!

Defining alternate dimension units in AutoCAD

The dimension measurements in your drawing use a specific unit, whether millimeters, inches, or something else. But it’s common to need to show a second unit — perhaps a metric measurement if you’re using inches, or vice versa.

You define an alternate measurement on the Alternate Units tab of the Dimension Style dialog box. For […]

Open AutoCAD with a specific template

You can launch AutoCAD with a specific template of your choice. You do this with a command line switch.

When you double-click the icon on your desktop or start AutoCAD from the Start menu, you are executing a statement. You can customize this statement by adding parameters, also called switches.

To learn the statement of […]

Close AutoCAD quickly and safely — and get home earlier!

Just in time for the holidays, when you may want to rush out the door, here is a guest blog post from Paul Munford. Your family will thank you!

We’ve all done it. You are beavering away at the office, totally engrossed in the Music on your iPod in your work, when you realize […]

Get rid of the default grid in AutoCAD

Starting with AutoCAD 2011, Autodesk has made the grid on by default. Do you turn it off every time you start AutoCAD?

If you don’t know how to turn it off permanently, here are the steps:

Open the template you usually use. If you use the default, acad.dwt, open that. The location will depend on […]

Make hatching in AutoCAD easy

Hatching can sometimes be frustrating, so I’ve collected a few hatching tips together, including links to other tips. Think of the collection as your personal hatching helper.

In case you don’t know, a hatch is a pattern of lines and dots that fills an enclosed area.

Create user-defined hatch patterns

When you choose a […]

Fillets–another approach using AutoLISP

Tommy Holder submitted a different approach to creating fillets–one that includes drawing the lines. For the earlier routine, see “Reduce mouse clicks and increase productivity with AutoLISP.”

Tommy’s approach is unique, I think. Instead of drawing the lines first, the AutoLISP routine prompts you for points, which are the endpoints of the lines. Here are […]

Tutorial: Create cool curves with splines in AutoCAD

Splines are mathematically-defined curves. They are an important basis for 3D modeling, but they are useful in 2D as well.

Note: Splines were significantly updated in AutoCAD 2011.

There are 2 methods for creating splines:

Fit Points: You specify fit points, which are on the spline (by default). Control Points: You specify the control points, […]

Repeat an AutoCAD command automatically

You probably know that after you execute an AutoCAD command, you can press Enter to repeat it.

But it might be quicker to set a command to repeat automatically, if you know in advance that you’ll use it a number of times in a row.

Some commands repeat automatically. In a sense, the LINE command […]

How to lock AutoCAD’s user interface

This is a guest blog post from Paul Munford.

It’s happened to all of us. A car outside backfires, a door slams or a cheeky college sneaks up behind you and gives you a tickle; before you know it your AutoCAD user interface is a mess!

If you’ve invested a lot of time setting up […]

Reduce mouse-clicks and increase productivity using AutoLISP

This is a guest post by Sanjay Kulkarni, an AutoCAD programmer. You can read more about him at the end of this post.

The number of mouse-clicks required to perform a task is generally a good indicator of productivity. The fewer the number of clicks, the less time required–hence more productivity.

In this post we […]