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AutoCAD 2015 and AutoCAD LT 2015 Bible

The most comprehensive AutoCAD book around!

Use the Shift key as a shortcut

You can use the Shift key in AutoCAD in many ways to help make your AutoCAD tasks easier and quicker:

Press Shift with the FILLET or CHAMFER command to change the radius to 0 and extend to lines to meet Press and hold Shift to temporarily override ORTHO. Press and hold Shift+A to temporarily override […]

AutoCAD tutorial: Create a simple sheet set

Architects use sheet sets all the time to pull together the many required drawings into one package. Other disciplines use them less often, but if you need to deliver a number of drawings together, they can help you organize and maintain them.

Sheet sets have a reputation for being complicated and they are, if you […]

How to rotate the crosshairs and other techniques for drawing at an angle

Need to create a drawing at an angle? AutoCAD offers several options.

Use polar tracking to guide you

Right-click the POLAR button on the Status bar and choose Settings or click its down arrow and choose Tracking Settings. Set the angles you want and click OK. For example, a 45° angle will display tracking guides […]

Tutorial: Create attributes

Attributes are tags, or labels, for blocks. You can use attributes to add any text to a block. For example, attributes are often used to fill in the text in a title block.

By placing the attributes where you want them in the title block, you can facilitate the entering of the text. […]

Temporarily override object snap settings

Object snap settings let you quickly choose geometric points on an object. For example, you can set up a running (ongoing) Endpoint object snap (osnap, for short), so that whenever you get near the endpoint of an object, you can snap to it.

But sometimes, object snaps get in the way, especially if you want […]

Use the Dashboard to display a related tool palette

The Dashboard was introduced in AutoCAD 2007 for 2D tools and expanded in 2008 for 3D tools. Starting with 2008, it is also customizable.

The Dashboard has a little-known feature that lets you quickly display an associated tool palette. This tip works in both AutoCAD 2007 and 2008.

Each control panel (section) in the Dashboard […]

Select a block before a writeblock or edit

If you want to writeblock a block (use the WBLOCK command to save the block as a separate drawing file), normally, you’d start the WBLOCK command first. But then you have to choose the Block option in the Write Block dialog box and use the drop-down list to choose the block you want to write.

[…]

Control the display of tooltips

AutoCAD displays tooltips for object snaps, polar tracking, and dynamic tooltip. The object snap and dynamic tooltips can get in each others’ way. The Quadrant tooltip, as you move the cursor slightly, will alternate between saying Quadrant and Specify next point or ↓.

By changing the TOOLTIPMERGE system variable to 1, you can […]

Repeat previous commands

You certainly know that you can repeat the last command by pressing Enter or the spacebar.

However, many people don’t know that you can use the Up arrow to scroll through your previous commands in backwards order.

For example, suppose that you use the following commands:

LINE ARC CIRCLE

Then you can do the following:

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Pre-specify an angle

When you’re drawing a line at an unusual angle, you may want to see how the angle looks. After you specify the first point, you can type the < (angle) symbol and then the angle you want to try. For example, <10.

This locks the next segment to that angle while you enter the length. […]