Las Vegas, Nevada November 27-30, 2001

Speaker Name: J.C. Malitzke

Course Title: Tips, Tricks and Techniques in AutoCAD Course ID: GD42-1, All Levels

Course Outline: This 90-minute class will introduce new users and experienced users to many of the new capabilities, features, tips and techniques in AutoCAD® . If you are still using AutoCAD Release 14, 2000 or 2000i or looking to enhance productivity with AutoCAD 2002, then this session is for you! This course will cover text scaling, the block attribute manager, right click shortcut menus, publish to the web and web aware file access, CAD standards, layer translations, partial drawing open and load, polar and object tracking, quick dimensioning, trans-spatial dimensioning, AutoCAD DesignCenter, in-place reference editing, plotting tips and more, (as time permits)! See first-hand how these features could work for you.

Tips, Tricks and Techniques in AutoCAD Heads-up Design For those of us that have been typing at the command line, it time to use the toolbars and menus that AutoCAD provides us. Also, the mouse becomes a critical tool for us when we are manipulating the commands in AutoCAD. If you don’t have a wheel-mouse, then consider purchasing one. Use the wheel to do real-time Pan and Zoom, but most important…”When in doubt, right click!” (think about it!) Another tip. Double click on any object to edit. This is probably one of the simplest and most effective ways to edit geometry in AutoCAD 2002. AutoCAD Today is a feature rich window into AutoCAD 2002 and into Autodesk’s Point A. Leverage the internet while giving you the recently used files, tips, techniques, news feeds and access to DesignCenter. Connect yourself to your projects as well as setup a custom page called the CAD Managers Corner. In OPTIONS, set your files to open to 9. Also, Saveas for AutoCAD 2000 drawings and Incremental save percentage to 0. This will save 100% your drawing for each save you do!

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Active Assistance continually monitors your commands or dialog boxes related to the active command or dialog box in the Active Assistance window.

Layer Translator The Layer Translator is used to change a drawing's layers to match layer standards you set. Use the new toolbar. Translate from one layering standard or convention to another. Force entity color and linetypes to ByLayer. Purge unreferenced layers on exit.

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View only the entities that reside on selected layers. Use DWG/DWT/DWS files for reference layers. NOTE: Use the Layer translator to force object color and linetype to bylayer when you loose the bylayer associativity.

Try the LAYERP command for layer previous. Just like zoom previous. CAD Standards Set up a new cad standards file (DWS). You create a file that defines properties for layers, dimension styles, linetypes, and text styles (these are called plugins) and save it as a .dws file name extension. You configure the standards and check the standards for one drawing or many drawings.

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Batch Standards Checker Dialog Box The batch checker is used to check more than one drawing and create a punch list that contains non-standard feature Drawings, Standards, Plug-ins, Notes, Progress

Block Attribute Manager Block Attribute Manager is used to modify attributes within a block without exploding or redefining the block. Remove an attribute from a block definition, change the attributes text settings, change the order of the attributes, change the attributes tag name, prompt string, default value or properties. Use the BATTMAN command.

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Enhanced Attribute Editor Use the EATTEDIT command for editing a single block. Or just double clip on a block that has an attribute attached to it.

Publish to the WEB II Publish your drawings to the WEB in HTML format. A really neat wizard guides you through the generation of a project, HTML pages, PNG, DWF or JPEG format for your images. You can edit the project also. Use I-Drop technology to drag and drop your drawings from the web. Select the I dropper and drag the drawing into your AutoCAD session.

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Text Enhancements SCALETEXT. This new feature resizes using a relative scale factor, specific text height or by matching properties. TEXTSCALE Enter a base point option for scaling [Existing/Left/Center/Middle/Right/TL/TC/TR/ML/MC/MR/BL/BC/BR] <Existing>: Specify text height Specify new height or [Match object/Scale factor] <.25>: JUSTIFYTEXT. Changes the justification point of selected text objects without changing their locations. ‘SPACETRANS. This command is used transparently to convert text heights between Model Space and Paper Space. It is intended to be invoked transparently at a prompt for text height or other length value. For text in model space… Command: text Current text style: "style1" Text height: 0'-0" Specify start point of text or [Justify/Style]: Specify height <0'-0">: '_spacetrans >>Specify paper space distance <1">: .125

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Resuming TEXT command. Specify height <0'-0">: 20.20989226909908 Specify rotation angle of text <0>: Enter text: THIS IS TEXT IN Model Space.

Multiple Polyline edit When you have more that one Polyline to edit, what did you do? We all know that it took multiple picks to accomplish the task. In AutoCAD 2002, you have the ability to edit more than one polyline at a time!

Purge All Nested Objects Check out the new interface to purge nested objects in your drawing. Use this new command with a single command Eliminate multiple purge commands.

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Array Dialog is new.

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Partial Drawing Open and Load Did you ever wish you could open certain layers of a drawing to work on instead of the entire drawing? Does if take forever to open a large drawing? AutoCAD 2000 to the rescue! You will save load time when partial information is needed. You can then load other parts of a drawing as more information is needed. You can now Partial Open and Partial Load a drawing. • Use PARTIALOPEN to partially open a drawing • Use PARTIALOAD to load additional geometrical information into a partially opened drawing • Performance gains are the best when the drawings are 10-100Mb in size • You can specify views and/or layers • Memory requirements are reduced • You can control external reference loading • Spatial & Layer Indexes in Xrefs effect drawing load • The purge command cannot be used on a partially opened drawings • Partially opened drawings are locked Right-Click Shortcut Menus As was stated at the beginning of this paper……..“When in doubt - RIGHT CLICK” . If you are ever stuck and really don’t know where to go or what to do, click on your right mouse button! “Head-Up Design”. If you are a typist and like to use the screen menus or even use the pull-down menus while using AutoCAD, then change your paradigm and start using the right mouse button! You can now rapidly access menus with a right-click of the mouse. The following examples will guide you through some of these new menus. NOTE: If you want to have your middle mouse button to as the shortcut menu for OSNAP and not Real-time Pan and Zoom, then set the MBUTTONPAN variable to 0. The menus are: • Default • Drawing Area • Command line area • Dialog Boxes • Toolbars • Status Bar • Model and Layout Tabs In-Place Reference Editing How would you like to edit an external reference or block that is in your drawing? With the new feature of In-Place reference editing, you can do both. You can edit the Xref back to its original source!

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• You can: • Edit geometry in assemblies and layouts • Edit clipped external references • Edit portions or all of a block or external reference • Copy geometry from other references • Use Reference and Insert dialog boxes • Use dimming feature XEDIT turns off refediting.

Updated drawing after REFEDIT.

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Construction Tools AutoSnap Enhancements – There are two new object snap tools in AutoCAD 2000/2002. Extension and parallel. Extension snap acquires the endpoint of a line and arc and drags along the according path. Parallel snap acquires a line and draws a line parallel to the existing line . Tracking – is a way for you to locate a point relative to another point in space. If you did or did not use tracking in AutoCAD Release 14, the implementation in AutoCAD 2000/2002 is outstanding. Tracking has been improved because of its graphical front end. We can see exactly what is happening when we are using any of the varieties of tracking. Tracking consists of the following: • Tracking Paths –Extension and Alignment • Tracking Points • Temporary Tracking Point • Object Tracking • Polar Tracking • Tracking Tool Tips • TRACKPATH system variable • Status bar changes A new system variable TRACKPATH, is used to display the length or the tracking path. Think of the tracking path as a temporary construction vector showing direction. The default setting is 0. Set the TRACKPATH to 1 to reduce the length of the tracking length. Many beginners set the TRACKPATH to 1. 0 Displays full screen object snap tracking path 1 Displays object snap tracking path only between the alignment point and from point to cursor

location 2 Does not display polar tracking path 3 Does not display polar or object snap tracking paths The drawing below had a change order to punch in four new holes and to punch in the two new slots. Using object tracking, extension, center, endpoint and midpoint running osnaps it should take only 30 seconds or less to create the changes. Give this a try!

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Object Properties Window One of the best new features to AutoCAD 2002 is the ability to edit an object by double clicking on it. Lines, circle, arcs, etc use the Properties Window to edit. Dtext uses DDEDIT, Hatch uses HATCHEDIT, Mtext uses the multiline text editor. Give this a try. Your paradigm will change!!! In AutoCAD 2000/2002 the Properties Window becomes the focal point for editing. The Properties Window lists the current settings for all object properties when a single object or multiple objects are selected. It also can be used when using the 3DORBIT command. To modify properties using the Properties Window select the object or objects whose properties you want to change. You can leave the Properties Window open while you work on other parts of your drawing. • Double click on an object • When editing objects in AutoCAD 2000/2002, select the objects FIRST or by using the select

objects button, then go to the Properties Windows to do your edits • Use Quick Select to select objects for editing • The Properties Windows becomes the graphical front end to editing all objects. • Displays the current list of an object or objects • Filtered selection sets using Quick Select • PICKADD • Select Objects

AutoCAD DesignCenter AutoCAD DesignCenter is used to locate and load various graphical and non-graphical content, such as blocks, layers, hatch patterns, images, layouts, dimensions styles and text styles into your drawings. Also, in AutoCAD 2002 you have the ability to save drawings that have nested blocks in them. For example; created a drawing of valves that have 100 blocks in the drawing. Save the drawing as Valves to the Design Center folder under your AutoCAD 2002 folder. Just drag and drop

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these symbols into your drawing. (see below). You can think to ADC as the graphical front end to symbol libraries and other design content. You can access data from: • Current drawings • Local files • Network folders • Internet sites • Symbol tables • Block insertion • Xref insertion • Images • Dimstyles • Text styles • Hatch patterns drag and drop from a *.pat file • Layers • Linetypes • Symbol libraries form the Design Center folder.

New dimensioning tools in AutoCAD 2002 True associative dimensioning is now in AutoCAD 2002. Dimaso is replaced by DIMASSOC. Forget about Defpoints. We now dimension to an object. The dimensions are now attached to the object and not to a definition point. This works in both model space and paper space. Use your grips to

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stretch a rectangle and what your dimensions change. We could not do this in previous releases of AutoCAD. Dimensioning in Paper Space. Transpatial References or Transpatial dimensioning. If you have been applying your dimensions in Model space you now can dimension in Paper Space. Give it a try! DIMASSOC is a new system variable. It replaces DIMASO. The settings are: 2 enables associative dimensioning 1 creates non-associative dimensioning 0 creates exploded dimensions Set OPTIONS for new drawings.

Use the DIMREGEN command to force an update of all associative dimensions in the current drawing. Use the DIMREASSOCIATE command to associate a nonassociative dimension to an object or object snap points on geometry. Use the DIMDISASSOCIATE command to remove any associations for a set of dimensions.

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Quick Dimensioning Use Quick Dimensioning (QDIM) to create a series of dimensions quickly. You can create baseline, continuous, staggered, The command is particularly useful for creating a series of baseline or continued dimensions, or for dimensioning a series of circles and arcs. Note: QDIM cannot be used with transpatial dimensioning!

Plotting additions in AutoCAD 2002 Setting the Plot Merge Control. As lines cross in a drawing, the control of Lines Overwrite of Lines Merge is set in a *.pc3 file. The user can set this in the plotter file that is created. Filter Available Sheet Sizes. Paper sizes that are not required can be filtered out.

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Plot Stamp. Activate this command and configure the plot stamping options to your liking. True Color. True color can now be assigned in the Plot Style Editor. If you need more that 255 color and are doing a presentation drawing, set this property. Page Setups. A pagesetup is defined as the plotting parameters saved under a specific name When you set the parameters in the plot dialog box, you save these parameters as a page setup. Each pagesetup can be saved to a specific layout. Try this one……We know that we can create a pagesetup for a layout, but can you create a pagesetup for a model space drawing? People have stated that they have drawings done in Release 14 with a drawing in model space and do not use paperspace. Can a pagesetup be created in model space? YES. Give it a try! Creating a monochrome only PC3 file. If you plot to a HP color plotting device and what your drawing plot in monochrome (black and white) you can attach a monochrome plot style table. However, you can create a monochrome ONLY pc3 file. To do this you must edit the pc3 file and change the color setting. To do this, select Custom Properties-Options-Color Control and check the Convert colors to pure black. Save the new pc3 file with Monochrome as part of the name and you have created a pure monochrome pc3 file plot driver. (See below)

Other AutoCAD features Regenless Tab Switching. Eliminate regens when switching between layouts.

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Multi processor support. See speed increases especially for graphic operations. Use Windows 2000 operating system and AutoCAD 2002 and see up to a 30% increase in performance. True type font caching. Improved selection and performance. Fillet and chamfer commands stay. You don’t have to restart the command! Trim to object within blocks. Trim and Extend at during the same command. Remove your grips with a single escape!!!! Layer states. Save a snapshot of your current layer settings. Restore, export or import these settings. TEXT and DTEXT are the same. So if you are a user that types in commands, type TEXT. Add PICKADD to the Properties Window. Draw a rectangle with a distance! CLOSEALL. To close all drawings. DesignXML is here! This provides the ability to fully represent both graphical and nongraphical data. WBLOCK your drawing to an XML file. (Save the wblock as <filename.XML>) INSERT the XML file. Give it a try