Hope, one of my readers, asked me how to draw a line tangent to two circles. This is a great question because it isn’t very obvious at first. Here’s how you do it. Read more »

Due to limited time and because I’m feeling lazy today, this is going to be a short post.

Ever wonder how to properly explode a block that contains attributes without having the text revert to the attribute tag? Try the BURST command. It a special “explode” command made for blocks with attributes.

See, I told you this was short.

I’m a design drafter. I create contract plans for construction. After the final plan sets are made, I hand the prints off to our archival team to put the drawings in their final home. Part of this process is printing a unique barcode sticker for each sheet. I didn’t realize that they went through such a tedious process to get this done until an associate at work came to me with an idea: why not print barcodes directly on the plan sheets? Read more »

This has got to be the easiest way to create a block out of existing linework. The first step is to select some linework:

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When you match the properties from one piece of text to another by default it matches the rotation angle and text size. If you simply want to match the layer of one piece of text to another without affecting other text properties such as rotation angle and text size, follow these simple steps: Read more »

When you have a drawing with a lot of XREFs in it, the amount of layers shown in the “Layers” toolbar drop-down can increase dramatically. I started noticing as the amount of layers in the drawing increased, at some point they started being displayed in random order.

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Mohamed Haris from CADing && Coding posted a tip last year showing us how easy it is to publish drawings using a drag and drop method. It’s very simple. Read the full post here…

Cadalyst sent out a tip today on adding text below a dimension line. This is a great tip! I thought I would add some clarification. Read more »

Just a quick note; if you’re interested in subscribing to some handy AutoCAD tips, follow on Jeff Bartels Twitter: @JeffBartels. Good stuff for a lazy drafter like me.

Have a good weekend!

Here is a macro combined with a couple of scripts that I wrote this week. What it does is import data from another drawing (containing street names in this case) with a Map 3D query based on a rectangular area.

The Macro:

^C^Cscript;P:/GIS/XREF-CITY-MAP.scr;(alert "Pick two diagonal points to define the import area.");(setq firstp (getpoint "Pick first point: "));\(setq secondp (getpoint "Pick second point: "));\script;P:/GIS/IMPORT-STREETNAMES.scr;

I’ll break it down for you. Read more »

Here is a site that helps you learn AutoLISP in plain English. You will be guided slowly to create your own AutoLISP program! Check it out…