I use P to get what I want, when I want it, and you can too!

There are many times in AutoCAD when you need to select certain objects, but there just isn't a good way to do it while you are in a command. That is where the power of P can empower you and your selection sets.

If a command requires an object or objects to be selected then you can use the P option to select all objects that were previously selected. P stands for Previous. You can also use the SELECT command to, well, select objects. Once a set of objects has been selected it is saved in AutoCAD's memory until the next set of objects are selected. Here is a use case.

Some Thoughts to Employers About Training Your Employees

Train them or loose them.

Train them or your production will suffer.

Train them or you will loose even more money.

Train them or your competition will surpass you.

Train them or they will train themselves and leave you.

Stop fussing over training costs. Train your employees. It is the best investment in your company that you will ever make.

Quick Tip: Save before using AutoCAD Etransmit

AutoCAD's eTransmit tool is a quick and easy way to gather all of the used files, data, sheet set info, fonts, xref's, etc. from a project in order to send the files to a client or to archive the project.

eTransmit will get every piece of data you used to create your drawings so that you can rest assured that you have everything.  I use it to send project files to clients, municipalities, and for archiving.

But before you use it, if you have any files currently open that you plan to eTransmit  save them first.  If you don;t save them first, eTransmit will not work.  It will return an error message and stop working.  You will have to save the file then start the eTransmit command again.  Of course it stops once it has processed all of the drawing files.  If you selected 100 drawings to eTransmit, it will process each one then end.  Forcing you to sit through that again!

Save first.  Then eTransmit.

AutoCAD Quick Tip – How to Edit Command Aliases

AutoCAD commands can be entered via the keyboard in shorter versions called Command Aliases.  These are typically two to three keystroke versions of the regular command.  They allow for quicker input and require less effort.  Most commands have them and there is an easy way to change them or to add more aliases to the default list.

AutoCAD Video Tip - Text in ALL CAPS

Need to write AutoCAD Text in ALL CAPS?  Here is a Quick Video Tip on how to change the case of your text and to make sure you always type in ALL CAPS while working with AutoCAD.

Quick Tip - Delete Layer

When working in AutoCAD or one of it's vertical platforms, have you ever had a layer that you couldn't get rid of?  If happens.  You can delete a layer if it is empty, meaning that there is nothing using it.  Sometimes it's a block that has an object in it that's on that pesky, non-deleting layer.  If you are 100% sure you have an empty layer and you still can't get rid of it "nuke" it with the LAYER DELETE command.  Just type LAYDEL on the command line.  It will fully purge the layer and delete it.  LAYDEL used to be an Express Tool, but now it's a core command in AutoCAD.

Array Objects Along a Polyline

Today I had to draw 12" square piles along a shore line about 100 feet long at 3' centers. The shore line was obvious not in a straight line. Originally I was going to draw my square with a circle with a 3' radius and copy each object one at a time. I would use the center of the square (and circle) as a base point and place the next object at the intersection of the circle and the shoreline. Tedious, but it would get the job done. Then I thought about it for a second. there has to be a way to do this in one (maybe two) keystrokes. So I went to the discussion boards at AUGI.

The great people there suggested I use either the DIVIDE or MEASURE command. I always forget about those two commands. Not any more! Both commands work virtually the same. They will place points along a selected line (polyline or spline) in equal segments. DIVIDE places a number of points along a line (a number you give it) while MEASURE places points along the line at a set interval (provided by you.)

If you don't want to place the points, you can choose to place a block instead. In this case (as it was suggested to me on the AUGI discussion boards) I made my pile a block and had the measure command insert it along my polyline at 3' intervals. AND (yes it gets better!) when I did this, the command asked me if I wanted the blocks to be aligned with the line! Of course I did!! Boo-ya!!! What was going to take me 5 minutes to do, now took 30 seconds (not counting the time spent on the board.)

Thanks AUGI!

Quick View Layouts-With Tabs

A reader recently asked me how to get the layout tabs back in AutoCAD 2009. He had been using the Quick View Layout (or QVL for short) but wanted to use the tabs again. In some cases tabs are quicker and easier to use. I agree. The QVL are great when you want a preview of the layout. Well, here's how:

Open up OPTIONS. To do that, type on the command line OPTIONS. (caps don't matter by the way.) Go to the DISPLAY tab, then to the bottom left of the screen to the LAYOUT ELEMENTS area. Make sure to Check the box that says DISPLAY LAYOUT AND MODEL TABS. That will turn them on.

You can use either method of moving through the tabs i your drawings. Even if the tabs are on, you can still use QVL. If you don't like either of these methods, you can toggle through your tabs by pressing CTRL+PAGE UP (or PAGE DOWN). CTRL+Page Up takes you towards the first tab, while CTRL+Page Down take you toward the last tab.

Entering Angles in Surveyor's Angles

Many times in AutoCAD, users will enter an angle in Degrees. Maybe even in Degree/Minutes/Seconds. If you are a surveyor or are working with a survey drawing, you will see angles (or bearings) written something like this:

N45d20'6"E (where d is the degree symbol)

This means the angle is North 45 degrees, 20 minutes, 6 seconds, East.

Users can input angles just like this if we need to. When drawing a line, pick your first point, then type in:

Make sure to start with the '@' symbol. Then enter the distance, (here it is 200) then the less than sign (I would type it in but my blog thinks I am trying to type in an HTML tag!!) then N (for north or S for South) the angle number (45) d to let AutoCAD know it is the degree, then the minutes and seconds if any. Don't forget to type in the symbols ' for minutes and " for seconds. Finish up with your last direction e (E for east and W for west.)

This will draw a line 200 units long at 45d20'6" to the "right" (or east) of north (straight up)

It's that simple.

Happy CADDING

Quick Tip - "Shift+Spacebar" To select Stacked Objects

How many times have you tried to pick an object that was underneath another object? Some times it's not so easy, especially if you have several objects in a busy area.

Solution: Start your command (move, copy, delete, whatever). Place your cross hair over the desired object (or stack of objects).

If you can't select the proper object, press the shift key and spacebar (Shift+Spacebar) simultaneously to toggle through the stacked objects. When the object you want is highlighted, pick it and you are on your way.

Happy CADDing.

(I had to edit this post because I wrote that you press the CTRL+Shift to do this - what a Moron I am. Sorry about that.)

Quick Tip - Open Pallets With Shortcuts

If you need to open the Tool Pallets pallet, Properties Pallet, Design Center, Sheet Set Manager, or one of several pallets in AutoCAD, here is a guide to use. Simply Press the Control Key (ctrl) + (a number key) to open or close specific pallets. It helps to spend less time looking for the button, ribbon panel, or menu when your most frequently used pallets are but 2 keystrokes away.

ctrl + 1 = Properties Pallet
ctrl + 2 = Design Center
ctrl + 3 = Tool Pallet
ctrl + 4 = Sheet Set Manager
ctrl + 5 = empty (perhaps you can find a use for it)
ctrl + 6 = db Connection Manager
ctrl + 7 = Mark Up Set Manager
ctrl + 8 = Quick Calculator (2008 and up only)
ctrl + 9 = Command Line
ctrl + 0 = Clean Screen

Happy CADDing.

Quick Tip-Mtext Upper to Lower Case and Back

Here is an Mtext Quick Tip that I am "borrowing" from Cadalyst's latest Tips and Tools Weekly.

Have you ever typed a note in AutoCAD's Mtext editor only to find out that your caps lock was on (or off depending on what you want to accomplish)? There are a few things you can do to fix it. Right click in the editor and select the CHANGE CASE option. Or, press Ctrl + Shift + U to set the text to Upper Case, OR . . . . press Ctrl + Shift + L to set the test to Lower Case.

Very simple but handy.

Happy CADDING!

Quick Tip - Set Your Limits

Here is another Quick-Tip from CAD-a-Blog on using AutoCAD.

If you work with the GRID on set your limits. This will define the area where your grid will be shown. If you want to work in a small area of a drawing, set your limits there to display your grid. It is a better practice to set the limits to cover your entire drawing area and not a small portion.

Another reason to use limits is to help control the area covered inside your file. If limits are set, and LIMIT CHECKING is turned on, then you will not be allowed to select points outside of the limits area. This will help to prevent accidental insertion to points far away from your desired working area.

Quick tip - Annotated text

Here's a quick tip from CAD-a-Blog using AutoCAD's Annotative Text. If you need to use text in drawings to lable something in multiple drawings use Annotative Text. Just set up a text style that is Annotative and have at. It can be set to show up through an x-ref file ant several different scales eliminating the need for multiple entities of text each having to be updated. And if your views are rotated you can turn on the MATCH TEXT ORIENTATION TO LAYOUT setting. That will automatically rotate your text so you can read it!!

Happy CADDING!

Quick Tip - Fielding Your Object Data

If you make a bill of material, parts list, quantities, etc. to put on your drawing, try using fields and tables to help yourself out. For example, I often need to show acreages for a residential site plan and total them.

The old way: measure the areas, add them up, and enter the text. If they changed, I had to do the same process, again.

New Way: for those areas, use a closed polygon, boundary, region, or hatch. Where you text is for your list, use a FILED, link it to the objects and display that objects area. If the area of the object changes, your text will update. Put these in a table, have the table do the math for you and you are done.

It's a little more complicated than this to set it all up and there are some things to be careful with, but this is a quick tip. It's meant to get you started.

If you have any questions, just comment them here or e-mail.

Happy CADDING!

Quick Tip – Blending Styles in Impression

If you are working in Impression and are trying to get a blended shade, but you can’t quite get it to work with a gradient fill, try placing multiple fills.

Create a fill with one style and place it in your object. Create a different style and place a second fill on your object. Mess with that fills opacity until you get a pretty neat effect. You can blend different colors together too, and remember to try gradient fills with this trick.

Quick Tip – Remove Columns in Layer Manager

Does your Layer Manager take up too much screen space? Maybe there are too many columns in the manager for your liking. Here’s a quick tip that reduce the amount of space it takes up.

Open the layer manager. Go to the top of the manager, where it lists the column headers (On, Lock, Freeze, etc). Right click anywhere there. A list of the available columns will open up. Click off the ones you don’t want to see. If you turn one off, just click it back on in that list. The data is still there, you just don’t have the columns taking up the space.

Quick Tip – Slow Printing

If you are using AutoCAD 2008 or even AutoCAD 2009, you might have noticed the printing seems to move a little bit slower. Here is a quick tip on speeding up your printing.

AutoCAD 2008 introduced to us BACKGROUND PROCESSING for plotting. The theory behind it is that it will free up your computer while printing so that you can continue to work. It sounds good. I like it when I am publishing something or batch plotting through the sheet set manager.

BUT (there’s always a but in there somewhere), when I need to print single sheets, I don’t like it so much. What often happens to me is that I have two to three drawing files open and I want to print them. They might be from different drawing sets or whatever. The point is that I can only print them from the DWG files, one at a time. The background processing printing won’t let me print the second file until the first one is finished. So what’s the big deal?

The problem is that when you print behind the scenes, it takes longer. It takes longer because the computer is processing the printing, and processing your work. So I tried it. I switched it off and WOW!! The old printing speed returned. I have kept it off and my printing is much faster.

I usually don’t encourage people to turn off new features, because I want all of us to give them a chance. But this one works better for me when it is off. Perhaps the speed is not an issue (and even for me it isn’t always an issue) for you, and that’s ok too.

To turn it off, open up the OPTIONS (type in OP at the command line). Go to the PLOT AND PUBLISH tab. Near the left center area there is the option to toggle on/off Background Plotting. You have the ability to turn off Plotting and/or Publishing. I left the publishing on but turned the plotting off. Set it to fit your needs.

Happy CADDING.

Quick Tip – Clean Screen

The Clean Screen command in AutoCAD will provide a fuller view of your screen, making it easier to work with. It turns everything “off” on your screen except for the status bar, menu bar, and the command line. Invoking the Clean Screen command again restores your screen

Click the Clean Screen button in the lower right hand corner of the screen (it looks like a box) to toggle it on and off. OR, press “CTRL+O” (that’s the letter “O” not the number zero).

Happy CADDING

Quick Tip - Layer Walk

What's on your layers? In AutoCAD, users can utilize the LAYER WALK command, or LAYWALK. Lynn Alan has posted a video on her CADalyst Website, Lynn Alen's Tips and Tricks Tuesdays, that talks about the laywalk command.

Laywalk used to be an Express Tool, meaning that you had to purchase the express tools add on to get it. It also meant that AutoCAD LT users couldn't get it. Now it is a standard AutoCAD command and is available to both "vanilla" AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT.

Type in LAYWALK in the command line to start it. A window comes up listing all of the layers in your file. Pick one and all items on that layer will be displayed. If a layer is blank, nothing will show up. If nothing shows up, there is a button to purge that layer.

Watch the video to get a visual on how it works.

Happy CADDING