AutoCAD Commands People Laugh At When You Say Them

There are a hundreds of command and system variables in AutoCAD.  Most of them make sense as to what they do with regards to their names.  Others, not so much.  Sometimes though some commands just tickle the funny bones of other AutoCAD users.  Here is a list of some of those commands and what they do.

OOPS
This command will undelete the last object that you deleted.  This is nice if you accidently delete something but don’t realize it until you have already done a lot of work.  Normally you would UNDO the delete but you don’t want to UNDO your work!  OOPS and it’s back.  


WHOHAS
This command will tell you “who has” a file open.  Have you ever tried to open a file only to be denied!  Read only is fine unless you want to actually do some work in the file.  Run the WHOHAS command, browse to the file you want to check and pick it.  AutoCAD will tell you who is holding on to your file.

EATTEXT
This command doesn’t really exist in AutoCAD anymore but you can still type it in.  EATTEXT used to be the Attribute Extraction wizard but was replaced with the Data Extraction wizard.  But EATTEXT is much more fun to say than DATAEXTRACTION.

GIZMO
GIZMO is not a Mogwai nor is it an actual AutoCAD command.  It is really a tool that lets you move, rotate, or scale 3D objects in AutoCAD.  You can use the system variable DEFAULTGIZMO to set which gizmo you will use.  The commands are 3DMOVE, 3DROTATE, and 3DSCALE.

NURBS
Ok, this isn’t so much of a command but an object.  It stands for “Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline”.  Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines, are mathematical representations of 3-D geometry that can accurately describe any shape from a simple 2-D line, circle, arc, or curve to the most complex 3-D organic free-form surface or solid. Because of their flexibility and accuracy, NURBS models can be used in any process from illustration and animation to manufacturing.  And yes, AutoCAD can handle NURBS!!  It’s not just for 2D!

OVERKILL
OVERKILL is a long time Express Tool that was made a native AutoCAD (and therefore AutoCAD LT) command in AutoCAD 2012.  OVERKILL is what you enter on the command line to start the Delete Duplicates command.  It will clean up your file be removing duplicate lines and other objects.


BATTMAN
This is my favorite command to tell people about because they never ever believe me!  Never.  The response I typically get is, “Really?”  It’s true.  BATTMAN has come to my rescue many times in AutoCAD.  BATTMAN is the Block Attribute Manager.  Use it to manage attributes in a specific block.  With it you can edit values and other properties of all attributes that are already in a block in a file.  If you ever edit a block with attributes and it just doesn’t update the other instances of the block then put up the BATT signal!!  Start BATTMAN, select the troublesome block, then click the SYNC button.  BAM!  POW!  It’s fixed.