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AutoCAD 2015 and AutoCAD LT 2015 Bible

The most comprehensive AutoCAD book around!

Change the font of a text style 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.

In the current era of globalization, many times you may have to work on drawings received from others. Sometimes, you may not be able to control the quality of the drawings you […]

Understanding how dimensions are associated with objects

This is a guest post by Sanjay Kulkarni, an AutoCAD programmer.

Learning AutoLISP (or any other programming language) doesn’t compel you to become a programmer. You can still use it to better understand the internal working of AutoCAD and enhance your interactive working skill. This can also give you an edge over others.

Recently […]

How to load an AutoLISP program

This is a guest post by Sanjay Kulkarni, an AutoCAD programmer.

This post describes the method to load an AutoLISP program in an open drawing.

Some basic & fundamental information before we move to the procedure

An AutoLISP program runs inside (in the same workspace of) an open drawing. Therefore it is necessary to load […]

Another way to align a rectangle with a line on the fly–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.

In an earlier post, Ellen showed how to align a rectangle with a line on the fly. You can easily create the same effect using AutoLISP. This AutoLISP routine is simple, and […]

Access related files with search paths

All AutoCAD drawings are connected to related files. At the very least, all drawings need access to a customization user interface (CUI) file. Some drawings also need to access fonts, plug-ins (such as AutoLISP and VBA files), linetypes, and hatch patterns. Drawings may have externally referenced drawings (xrefs).

You can make your AutoCAD life easier […]

“AutoCAD Block Best Practices,” an e-book by Edwin Prakoso

Edwin Prakoso has written an excellent and thorough e-book on AutoCAD blocks. In 69 pages, he covers the following:

Creating, inserting, modifying, and replacing blocks Creating and using attributes Creating annotative blocks Creating dynamic blocks, including visibility states, parameters, and constraints Extracting data from blocks Best practices examples Managing and sharing blocks

The book is […]

Create a custom keyboard shortcut

Would you like to create a keyboard shortcut to your favorite command-option combination? For example, I would like a version of the COPY command that doesn’t repeat, that is, that ends after one copy operation. Here are the steps:

Enter cui to open the Customize User Interface dialog box. In the Command List pane, […]

Productivity boost ideas

Note: This is an article by Fran Golding, Senior Drafter at Parsons Brinckerhoff, a large planning, environment and infrastructure firm with offices in Australia and New Zealand. Perhaps you can add your own productivity boost ideas.

When I first started to drive a car, I had the feeling that I was not the one in […]

Tutorial: Create a command alias (keyboard shortcut)

Many people like to use the keyboard to enter commands, but some of the commands are long, hard to type, or difficult to remember. You can create keyboard shortcuts for commands, such as DL for DIMLINEAR or RVC for REVCLOUD.

AutoCAD comes with a large number of aliases already made for you. You edit the […]

Extract data from objects in AutoCAD 2008 and later

One of the new features in AutoCAD 2008 is data extraction. This might make you think of block attributes and data connectivity, but it combines features of both. It’s both simple and powerful.

You start with the new DATAEXTRACTION command, or by starting the TABLE command and choosing the From Object Data in the […]