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AutoCAD 2015 and AutoCAD LT 2015 Bible

The most comprehensive AutoCAD book around!

Organize files in Windows to mimic the Today file listing

Some of you may remember the Today feature of AutoCAD 2002, which was a front-end window that allowed you to open existing files, create new files, and so on. One of its views was an alphabetical list of files, separated by the first letter of their name. Another was a listing by date.

Today quickly […]

Find where xrefs are hosted

Would you like to know in which drawings a specific file is used as an xref? Let’s say that you’re editing a drawing and you’re pretty sure that it’s used as an xref in some other drawings. Changing the drawing will change these other drawings, too.

Mai Ezzat of Egypt sent in this tip to […]

Tutorial: How to share your drawings easily with eTransmit

The eTransmit feature helps you send drawings to others by collecting all of a drawing’s associated files. It’s also an excellent tool when you simply want to move drawings. You can create a folder (use this option for moving files), a ZIP file, or an EXE file that is a self-extracting compressed format. You can […]

Save layouts with layout templates

When you create a layout, including viewports, a title block, text, and so on, you can save it as a template to use in the future. If you would sometimes like to use a layout from a different drawing, one that isn’t included in your drawing’s template, and therefore not available to you in your […]

Tutorial: Create a DWF file

A DWF file is a vector image format that you can use to share your designs with others, without sending the actual drawing. You might do this to share your designs without revealing the details, or to send them to people without AutoCAD. The recipients use Autodesk Design Review to view the DWF file. Autodesk […]

Save plot settings to a layout

When you set up a plot in the Plot dialog box, you can save your settings to the Model tab or any layout tab. In the Plot dialog box, check the Save Changes to Layout check box. Then, the next time you plot from the same tab (Model or layout), the default settings will be […]

Display a named view in a viewport

While you create your drawing, you may specify named views (View > Named Views) that display areas you’ll want to show in a viewport on a layout (paper space).

When it comes to creating viewports, you can display a named view in a couple of ways. One, of course, is to double-click inside a viewport […]

Plot on a black & white printer

Do you ever print out draft plots on a black & white laser printer? If so, you may have found that the plots were in grayscale and some of your objects were such a light gray that they were hard to see. Instead, you’d probably like all objects to appear in full black.

Here’s a […]

Control the export of WMF images

Padmasiri e-mailed me from Sri Lanka:

“I draw diagrams in AutoCAD and export them as Windows Metafiles(WMF). After that I import them to an MS Word document. Unfortunately they are imported with the background. But I want them without background (only the line work). How do I overcome this problem?”

This is a common task. […]

Combining DWF files

Since AutoCAD 2004, you can create multi-page DWF files. These are great when you want to send one DWF file but many drawings or layouts to someone. The new DWF reader (now called Autodesk DWF Reader) can also display these multi-page files. Suppose you have some existing DWF files and want to combine them into […]