Sybex AutoCAD Professional Tips and Techniques Dec 2006

AutoCAD®

WILEY PUBLISHING, INC.

Professional Tips

and Techniques

Lynn Allen

Scott Onstott

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AutoCAD®

WILEY PUBLISHING, INC.

Professional Tips

and Techniques

Lynn Allen

Scott Onstott

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Acquisitions Editor: Willem Knibbe

Development Editor: Heather O’Connor

Technical Editor: Jon McFarland

Production Editor: Martine Dardignac

Copy Editor: Tiffany Taylor

Production Manager: Tim Tate

Vice President and Executive Group Publisher: Richard Swadley

Vice President and Executive Publisher: Joseph B. Wikert

Vice President and Publisher: Dan Brodnitz

Book Designer and Compositor: Chris Gillespie, Happenstance Type-O-Rama

Proofreader: Nancy Riddiough

Indexer: Ted Laux

Anniversary Logo Design: Richard Pacifico

Cover Designer: Ryan Sneed

Cover Image: ©Ashley Cooper/Corbis

Copyright © 2007 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN-13: 978-0-470-08454-0

ISBN-10: 0-470-08454-5

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by

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Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600. Requests

to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 10475

Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46256, (317) 572-3447, fax (317) 572-4355, or online at http://www.

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Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: The publisher and the author make no representations or war￾ranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all

warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be

created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not

be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in

rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services

of a competent professional person should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for

damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or Website is referred to in this work as a citation

and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses

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For general information on our other products and services or to obtain technical support, please contact

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TRADEMARKS: Wiley, the Wiley logo, and the Sybex logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of

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mentioned in this book.

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Dear Reader

Thank you for choosing AutoCAD: Professional Tips and Techniques. This book is part of a family of

premium-quality Sybex books, all written by outstanding authors who combine practical experience with

a gift for teaching.

Sybex was founded in 1976. Thirty years later, we’re still committed to producing consistently excep￾tional books. With each of our titles we’re working hard to set a new standard for the industry. From the

paper we print on, to the writers and professionals we work with, our goal is to bring you the best books

available.

I hope you see all that reflected in these pages. I’d be very interested to hear your comments and get

your feedback on how we’re doing. To let us know what you think about this or any other Sybex book,

please send me an email at: [email protected]. Please also visit us at www.sybex.com to learn

more about the rest of our growing AutoCAD line.

Best regards,

Neil Edde

Vice President and Publisher

Sybex, an Imprint of Wiley

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To my fabulous husband, Craig

—Lynn Allen

To Jenn and Merlin

—Scott Onstott

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I’d like to send out a great big thank you to all of you AutoCAD users out there who

make my job worthwhile each and every day and have taught me more than I could

ever learn on my own. Thanks to Autodesk for giving me the time and space to work

on this book where needed (especially you, Kelly). Thanks to the ever-patient Willem

Knibbe, who worked overtime convincing me to write another book and turned my

No’s into a Yes. Above all, thanks to the amazingly talented Scott Onstott, who was the

real reason we were able to pull these great tips together into one action packed book.

And to Tiffany, my Maltese puppy, who sat next to me for the many hours I worked on

this book... I see many dog biscuits in your future.

—Lynn Allen

I’d like to thank Lynn Allen for co-writing this book with a person she’s met only

“virtually.” Willem Knibbe deserves extra credit for getting this book off the ground

while coordinating the efforts of two authors. Thanks to Heather O’Connor for her

work in developing the book. Jon McFarland has my appreciation for his fine technical

editorial work and his excellent suggestions. Thanks also to Tiffany Taylor for her work

as copy editor and Martine Dardignac for keeping everyone on schedule.

—Scott Onstott

Acknowledgments

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Contents at a Glance

Introduction xvii

Chapter 1 Arranging the AutoCAD User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter 2 Drawing and Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Chapter 3 Annotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Chapter 4 Layouts and Sheets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

Chapter 5 Dynamic Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Chapter 6 3D Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Chapter 7 Visualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

Chapter 8 Sharing Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

Chapter 9 Plotting and Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

Chapter 10 Customization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Index 305

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Contents

Introduction xvii

Chapter 1 Arranging the AutoCAD User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

a Tweaking Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Maintain a Healthy Disk Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Take Control of the Swap File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Clean Out Temporary Crud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Perform Basic Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Know Your Display Control Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Prepare for AutoCAD Launch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Cycle through Tasks and Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

a Finding Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Search Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Disable Antivirus Checking of Help File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Use Cursor Help in Dialog Boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Quick Help Offers Contextual Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Submit Comments about AutoCAD Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Online Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

a Using Workspaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

a Organizing the Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Hide the Command Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Clean Up the UI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Anchor Dockable Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Setup the Dashboard/ Tool Palette Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Lock Down the UI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Recover “Lost” Dockable Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

a Inputting with the Keyboard and Mouse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Input Optimizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Board the Command Alias Express . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Function Key Master List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Temporary Overrides Are Here to Stay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Crosshairs in 3D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

As the Wheel Turns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Customize the Right Mouse Button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

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x Contents

Chapter 2 Drawing and Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

a Boosting Productivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Input Dynamically . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Tooltips Point the Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Calculate Anything Quickly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Survey Says? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Work with Angles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Sketching Tricks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Draw As-Builts from the Outside In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Snap To It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Affect Visual Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Select Like a Pro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

a Drawing and Editing Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Arc More Effectively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Polyline Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Neat Cloud Revisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Control Overlap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Make a Mark with UNDO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Drag to Move and Copy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Changing and Matching Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Hip Grip Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Master TRIM and EXTEND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

How Do You Say Fillet? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Power OFFSET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

DIVIDE and MEASURE with Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Is It Overkill? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

a Living with Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Make Use of Nonplotting Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Use Layer Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Search Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Layer Filter Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Take a Layer Walk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Translate Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Layers: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Chapter 3 Annotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

a Hatches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

On the Origins of Hatch Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Set the Default Pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

To Fill or Not to Fill? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Disable Snap for Hatches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

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Contents x i

Tolerance Is a Good Thing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Separate Patterns for Flexibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Pick Your Selection Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Pick Points for Hatches and Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Find Areas with Hatches. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Customize Hatch Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

a Text and Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

The Height of Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Change CASE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Spell Czech! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Find (and Replace) Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Enlarge Text While Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Control MTEXT Width . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Edit MTEXT the Way You Want . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Single-Line Text Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Super Subtext . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Clever Alignment via the Clipboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Renumber Text without Losing Your Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Create Logos with Text as Linework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Reassociate Fudged Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Easily Flip Dimension Arrows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

a Attributes and Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Define, Insert, and Burst Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

See Invisible Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

Do Something with Invisible Attribute Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Attributes: Think Local . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

Attributes Go Global . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Synchronize the Old with the New (or Not) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Playing in the Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Display Area in a Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Use Fields Inside Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Hyperlink Text with Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

a Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Import/Export Business Is Booming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Generate Tables from Attribute Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

Chapter 4 Layouts and Sheets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

a Laying It Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

Make Layouts the Easy Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

Name Your Page Setups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

Set Layout Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

Save and Reuse Layout Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

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xii Contents

a Looking through the Viewport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Edit the Scale List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Cycle through Viewports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

Create an Enlarged Viewport Bubble . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

Create Viewports for Viewing Solid Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

a Lost in Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Change Space without Breaking a Sweat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Work Safely in a Layout Viewport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Scale Linetypes in Paperspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

a Nice Clean Sheets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Sheet-Set-Speak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Import Sheets from Layouts or Create New Sheets? . . . . . . . . . . 151

Design a Title Block with Fields as a Sheet-Creation Template . 153

Chapter 5 Dynamic Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

a Block Basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

Absolutely No Explosions Allowed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

Be a Smart Bomber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Local Blocks Go Global and Back Again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

Nest Blocks in the Block Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Assign Properties Prior to Insertion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Hey AutoCAD, Don’t Scale My Blocks! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Avoid Nonuniform Scale at All Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

Try Auxiliary Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

Count Those Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

a Way Off Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

Set the Entire Drawing’s Insertion Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

Insert Blocks with Temporary Base Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

Hide the Insertion Point Grip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Cycle Multiple Insertion Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

a Play with Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Seven Secrets of Symmetric Stretching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Align Your Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

Hide Set Marks for Small Increments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

Control Object Visibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

Lose Your Grip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

a Associate Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Action Selection Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Base-Point Independence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

One Parameter, Multiple Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Turn the Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

Display Block Properties with Placeholder Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

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