AutoCAD 2015 and AutoCAD LT 2015 Bible
The most comprehensive AutoCAD book around!
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By Ellen Finkelstein Groups are a feature that help you select several objects together, without putting them into a block. You can turn the group on and off, to allow you to select individual objects in the group. Also, any one object can belong to more than one group — another advantage compared to blocks.
For AutoCAD 2011 […]
By Ellen Finkelstein Do you change your plot settings a lot? Do you plot drawings in various ways, for example, a draft plot and a final plot? Or do you create various layouts and need to plot them differently?
You can save page setups, which contain settings for plotting. A page setup is attached to a layout, so […]
By Ellen Finkelstein AutoCAD supports Autodesk’s DXF (Drawing Interchange File) format, which is a text-only format that contains a 2D drawing’s information. The DXF format is often used to exchange drawings between different CAD programs.
You can save a drawing in DXF format and you can open a DXF file in AutoCAD and save it as a drawing. […]
By Ellen Finkelstein You can use the EXPLODE command to break up the block into its components, but you don’t have control over layer, color, linetype, and so on. The XPLODE command gives you that control.
Here’s how it works:
Type xplode on the command line. At the Select objects: prompt, select one or more blocks. If you […]
By Ellen Finkelstein Since AutoCAD 2008, you can refine table styles with cell styles, which define formatting for table cells. A cell style is part of a table style, but has its own name. Follow these steps to create a cell style.
Choose Draw> Table or choose Home tab> Annotate panel> Table to open the Insert Table dialog […]
By Ellen Finkelstein Blocks can contain attributes, which are labels with properties. For example, you can use attributes to attach price and manufacturer information to a block of an office chair.
Once you have the attributes, you can extract them to a simple database and open that database in Microsoft Excel, for example, or insert it as a […]
By Ellen Finkelstein It’s always good to keep to your dimension styles as much as possible, but sometimes a situation requires an exception. You can create an override, which is a sub-dimension style that varies from its parent style.
Follow these steps:
On the Annotate tab, click the Dimensions panel’s dialog box launcher arrow (the arrow at the […]
By Ellen Finkelstein You can add formulas to a table, so that it automatically calculates the following:
Sum Average Count (counts the cells in a column or row) Cell (displays the value of another cell) Equation (lets you manually insert a formula)
This makes the table work like a spreadsheet.
To add a formula, click outside the table […]
By Ellen Finkelstein Tool palettes are a great way to store blocks and hatches for easy access when needed. But if you have only one instance of each block or hatch, you may find that the scale isn’t right and the block or hatch comes in at the wrong size.
For example, you may need to change the […]
By Ellen Finkelstein For most purposes, the standard selection options are fine. For details, see Use All of Your Selection Options. If you need more, first see if Quick Select can help. See Select objects quickly with Quick Select.
Sometimes, you need a more precise tool to select objects. AutoCAD’s most full-featured tool for selection is the FILTER […]
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This Month's Top 10 Most Popular Cad Tips
Draw faster and easier!Top 25 Productivity Tips Every AutoCAD® User Should Know
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