Lazy AutoCAD Drafting Tips
Comments(7)Here are a few tips to speed up drafting.
- I am a huge fan of typing commands & command aliases. Here is a list of commonly-used command aliases. If you are unfamiliar with them, take one or two and start using them instead of clicking the toolbar button. Once you get the hang of typing rather than clicking buttons, you will start seeing big time-savings. I have one hand on the keyboard and one hand on the mouse.
- Instead of typing in commands again and again, use the up and down arrows to scroll through recently typed commands and hit enter or the spacebar to execute them. This enables you to type less than necessary.
- Quickly switch between opened drawings by holding down CTRL and hitting the Tab button.
- When you need quick access to an OSNAP, you can hold down SHIFT and right-click.
- Hold down the middle “scroll-wheel” mouse button to pan. This is much faster than clicking the pan button or even typing “P” on the command line. If it doesn’t work for you, type the MBUTTONPAN system variable and set it to 1.
- Zoom in and out with the scroll-wheel on your mouse.
If you have any tips for faster drafting, share them here as comments.
1. Type in a couple of charecters from the required command and use TAB button to locate the full command.
2. Create command sequences for simple but frequently used activities and keep it inside the acaddoc.lsp file or create a macro for that purpose.
3. Use ‘Add’ or ‘Remove’ option to add or remove objects while working with selection sets.
4. To use a specific object snap, type in first three charecters (like END, PER, CEN etc.)
5. Use grips to quickly access modification tools.
6. Double click the wheel button for quick zoom extents.
7. Use ALT underlined charecter, then again type underlined charecter to access commands from menus in case you don’t remember the command name (eg. ALT FP) for plot.
8. Finally my personal suggestion. Forget toolbars completely. Remove all of them from the drawing area. By doing so, not only you save a lot of drawing space, but also become much faster in drafting (Ofcouse it takes a few days or weeks).
There are so many ‘unforgettable’ tips and tricks to make our drafting easier. But unfortunately I don’t ‘remember’ them all ;-)
Here is more about “Recent Command”. The following is in our Office AutoCAD Manual:
A common setting for the right-click is for the RECENT INPUT (recent commands) to be available. BUT, I prefer for the right-click to immediately repeat the last command.
So, I set it so that if I hold down the right-click for more than 250 milliseconds, I get the SHORT CUT MENU, which has RECENT INPUT.
Another way for when I want the recent commands, I merely have to right-click on the command line. The Recent Commands will one of the options. (This is a shorter list than the RECENT INPUT).
From HyperPics: Tips and Tricks: “Right-click on the Command Line for a Shortcut Menu”:
Still another way, use the UP & DOWN Arrows to find the command to repeat, then press ENTER.
From Ellen Finkelstein, AutoCAD Tips: “Repeat previous commands”
You may have noticed that we give credit to the sources of our tips. Many are from your Lazy Drafter. Thanks.
Read Ya Daily -KLYPH
Har!s, Thanks for your tip #7. For years I’ve wondered why certain characters were underlined. Now I know. And I will use your tip. Again, thanks -KLYPH
How about holding ’shift’ when moving objects? It overrides the f8 ‘ortho’ toggle.
or how about holding ’shift’ when selecting objects? It overrides the ‘add/remove’ toggle.
or when asked for ’second point’ (eg when moving): type in a number with the mouse moving along the correct axis and the selection is moved that far towards the mouse. No need for 0,1500,0 or whatever.
i have more im sure
Lazy AutoCAD Drafting Tips …
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Quickest way to 3d-orbit: just hold shift while "panning" with the third mouse button.
1. When using the ROTATE command (Or using grips to rotate), you can quickly rotate objects 90, 180, or 270 degrees by entering N, W, or S (ie. North, West, or South) instead of inputting the numbers.2. To select a previous selection set complete with grips active, enter the command PSELECT and enter P for Previous (entering L will get the last object created with grips active)3. If you don’t want to use an Aligned Dimension, start the DIMLINEAR command, pick your two origin points, enter R for rotated, and enter/pick the desired angle for your dimension line4. If you are curious about what the RGB values of basic AutoCAD colors are, enter the command COLOR, and then simply hover your cursor over the desired and you will see the RGB value beside the AutoCAD color number