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AutoCAD 2015 and AutoCAD LT 2015 Bible

The most comprehensive AutoCAD book around!

How to break walls to insert a door

In an architectural drawing, you often need to break walls to insert a door. There are many ways to do this, but here is one way:

Let’s assume that you have a simple wall 4 inches thick. You want to insert a door that is 28 inches wide. You can easily translate these numbers into […]

Choose a useful point style in AutoCAD

Points have many uses in AutoCAD drawings. They are used for construction purposes, to help you find a coordinate. You can find a point using the NODE object snap. Sometimes, they are used as symbols, especially the more visible point styles.

The default point style is a simple dot, but it’s hard to see. Some […]

A different way to create an ellipse or oval

The ELLIPSE command is the usual way to create an ellipse — or oval — but there’s a different way that may be more intuitive for you.

Here are the steps:

Draw a rectangle. Select the rectangle. Start the PEDIT command (polyline edit). Choose the Spline option.

Now, select the oval. This is what […]

Create a circle tangent to a line

Sometimes you want a circle to hug a line perfectly. You could try to eyeball it, but there’s a better way–the tangent options of the CIRCLE command. There are two, TTR and TTT. The TTT option is something of a secret, because it doesn’t appear as an option on the Command line. I have no […]

Create views in your AutoCAD drawing

Do you create large drawings? If so, you probably spend a lot of time panning and zooming. Named views, which are pre-saved displays of part of your drawing, can help! A view can show any area of your drawing at any zoom value.

For the purpose of this tip, I’ll stick to views that you […]

Control the shape of objects when you edit them – Keep an equilateral triangle equilateral

Let’s say that you have an equilateral triangle and you want to make sure that it stays that way, even if you grip edit a corner. Because without any restrains, you can just wreck it, like this:

Use Parametrics to control the shape of objects as you edit them

AutoCAD’s geometric parametric feature lets […]

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 […]

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. […]

Insert a block in AutoCAD

In a previous post, I covered how to create a block in AutoCAD. Here I explain how to insert a block.

Insert a block from your current drawing

When you have the block definition in your drawing (perhaps you just created it), follow these steps to insert it:

Go to Home tab> Block panel>  Insert […]

Keep blocks accessible so you can insert them in any drawing–Part III: Content Explorer

In previous tips, I explained how to use Tool Palettes and the DesignCenter to insert blocks. In this post, I explain how to use the Content Explorer to access and insert blocks.

How the Content Explorer works

The Content Explorer was introduced with AutoCAD 2012. In many ways, it’s similar to the DesignCenter, but under […]