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AutoCAD 2015 and AutoCAD LT 2015 Bible

The most comprehensive AutoCAD book around!

Create a custom command and add a keyboard shortcut for a real time saver

Custom commands can really make your work go more quickly. Even if they save only a fraction of a second, they make you feel like you’re saving time — that extra smoothness is very satisfying!

Here’s one that I like. It creates a 1-segment line. Yes, I could press Enter to end the LINE command, […]

Create shapes to insert over and over

In AutoCAD, you can create custom shapes using code that resides in a text file. You can insert a shape using the SHAPE command. Custom fonts (especially non-Roman ones) are often created using this shape feature.

Shapes vs blocks

Inserting a shape is similar to inserting a block, so let’s start with the difference between […]

Easily share tool palettes with colleagues

Tool palettes can be a great place to store blocks, custom commands, and more. For example, in this post, I explain how to use tool palettes for blocks. And here I explain how to use tool palettes for user-defined hatches.

But what if you want to share them with others? You can share tool palettes […]

Tutorial: Create a custom command for AutoCAD using AutoLISP

AutoLISP offers powerful programming capabilities to AutoCAD, but you don’t need to be a programmer to use it. You can fairly easily create a simple custom command that can make your work go more quickly. In this tutorial, you’ll create a custom command that draws a red circle in any location and with any radius. […]

Keep blocks accessible so you can insert them in any drawing–Part I: Tool Palettes

Blocks are an essential component of most drawings because they save time, increase accuracy, and reduce drawing size. Blocks are most useful when you use them many times, especially across drawings. Therefore, you need a way to access saved blocks that aren’t in your current drawing. In this tip, I’ll discuss the first of 4 […]

Ditch dialog boxes with the command-line form of commands

Did you know that many commands have a variation that lets you execute them solely on the command line? This technique is great for creating script files and AutoLISP routines. For example, you can write a script file to plot your drawings.

The secret is to put a hyphen (-) before the command name. Here’s […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]