Part 1 RI PY RI GH TE D MA TE Chapter 1: Exploring the AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT Interface Chapter 2: Creating Your First Drawing Chapter 3: Setting Up and Using AutoCAD’s Drafting Tools Chapter 4: Organizing Objects with Blocks and Groups Chapter 5: Keeping Track of Layers and Blocks CO u u u u u AL The Basics
Chapter 1 Exploring the AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT Interface Before you can start to use AutoCAD 2012’s new capabilities, you’ll need to become familiar with the basics. If you’re completely new to AutoCAD, you’ll want to read this first chapter carefully. It introduces you to many of AutoCAD’s basic operations, such as opening and closing files, getting a close-up look at part of a drawing, and changing a drawing.
| Chapter 1 Exploring the AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT Interface Taking a Guided Tour In this section, you’ll get a chance to familiarize yourself with the AutoCAD screen and how you communicate with AutoCAD. As you do the exercises in this chapter, you’ll also get a feel for how to work with this book. Don’t worry about understanding or remembering everything you see in this chapter. You’ll get plenty of opportunities to probe the finer details of the program as you work through the later chapters.
Taking a Guided Tour If you’re using the trial version, you’ll see the Product License Activation window before step 2 in the preceding steps. This window shows you the number of days you have left in the trial version. It also enables you to activate the product if you purchase a license. Click the Try button to continue to the Welcome screen described in step 2. Now let’s look at the AutoCAD window in detail. Don’t worry if it seems like a lot of information.
| Chapter 1 Exploring the AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT Interface Figure 1.2 shows AutoCAD’s 3D Modeling workspace, which has a different set of Ribbon panels. Figure 1.2 also shows a standard AutoCAD drawing file with a few setting changes to give it a 3D appearance. Beneath these external changes, the underlying program is the same. Figure 1.2 The 3D Modeling workspace offers an alternative arrangement of the elements in the AutoCAD window.
Taking a Guided Tour (see the section “Using the UCS Icon”). In the upper-right corner, you see the ViewCube. The ViewCube is primarily for 3D modeling, and you’ll learn more about it in Chapter 21, “Creating 3D Drawings.” You’ll also see a Navigation bar along the right edge of the AutoCAD window. This bar offers tools you can use to get around in your drawing. Basic tools like Zoom and Pan can be found here as well as some advanced tools for viewing 3D models.
| Chapter 1 Exploring the AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT Interface Figure 1.5 The Export option in the Application menu showing the list of export options Figure 1.
Taking a Guided Tour The Open Documents option lets you quickly change from one open file to another when you are viewing your files full-screen. The Recent Documents option displays a list of documents on which you’ve recently worked. You can use the View tool in the upper-right portion of the Application menu to select the way the list of files is displayed in a manner similar to the way you would use the Windows Explorer View option.
| Chapter 1 Exploring the AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT Interface Communicating with the Command Window and Dynamic Input Display AutoCAD is the perfect servant: It does everything you tell it to do and no more. You communicate with AutoCAD by using tools and menu options. These devices invoke AutoCAD commands.
Taking a Guided Tour you can click the title bar to expand the panel (see Figure 1.8). The set of tools expands to reveal additional tools. If you move the cursor to the drawing area, the expanded panel shrinks to its original size. As an alternative, you can click the pushpin icon in the expanded panel title bar to lock the panel in its open position. Figure 1.8 The arrowhead in the panel title bar tells you that additional tools are available. Click the title bar to expand the panel.
| Chapter 1 Exploring the AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT Interface Understanding Flyouts The flyouts are one more feature you’ll want to know about. Flyouts are similar to the expanded panels because you can click an arrowhead to gain access to additional tools. Unlike a whole panel, however, flyouts give you access to different methods for using a particular tool. For example, AutoCAD lets you draw circles in several ways, so it offers a flyout for the Circle tool in the Home tab’s Draw panel.
Taking a Guided Tour General Tool Names vs. Tool Tip Names Since the tool tip names of tools with flyouts can change, describing them by name can be a bit problematic. The name may have changed based on the last tool you used from a flyout. For this reason, if a tool has a flyout, we’ll refer to it by a general name that is related to the set of tools in a flyout rather than by the tool tip name. For example, we’ll call the circle icon tool the Circle tool rather than the Center, Radius tool.
| Chapter 1 Exploring the AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT Interface Figure 1.13 The Dynamic Input display cursor If you don’t see the Dynamic Input display, click the Dynamic Input tool in the status bar to turn it on. 3. Move the cursor a bit in any direction; then, click the left mouse button again. Notice that the window selection disappears as does the Dynamic Input display. 4. Try picking several more points in the drawing area.
Working with AutoCAD | you click a point in the drawing area, you see the message Specify opposite corner:. At the same time, the cursor starts to draw a window selection that disappears when you click another point. The same message appears in the Dynamic Input display at the cursor. As a new user, pay special attention to messages displayed in the Command window and the Dynamic Input display because this is how AutoCAD communicates with you.
| Chapter 1 Exploring the AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT Interface Figure 1.14 The Select File dialog box If you don’t see a Preview box in the Select File dialog box, click the word Views in the upper-right corner and select Preview from the list that appears. 3. In the Select File dialog box, open the Look In drop-down list and locate the Chapter 01 folder of the Mastering AutoCAD 2012 sample files. (You may need to explore the list to find it.) 4. Move the arrow cursor to the clip.dwg file and click it.
Working with AutoCAD | The clip.dwg file opens to display a layout view of the drawing. A layout is a type of view in which you lay out different views of your drawing in preparation for printing. You can tell you are in a layout view by the white area over the gray background. This white area represents your drawing on a printed page. This view is like a print preview. Also note that the AutoCAD window’s title bar displays the name of the drawing. This offers easy identification of the file.
| Chapter 1 Exploring the AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT Interface Figure 1.18 Placing the zoom window around the clip First click here… And then click here. 3. Click the Zoom Window tool from the Zoom flyout in the Navigation bar (see Figure 1.19). Remember that to open the flyout, you need to click the arrowhead next to or below the tool. Figure 1.
Working with AutoCAD | 4. The Dynamic Input display shows the Specify corner of window: prompt with some options. Look at the image in Figure 1.18. Move the crosshair cursor to a location similar to the one shown in the figure as “First click here”; then, left-click the mouse. Move the cursor, and the rectangle appears with one corner fixed on the point you just picked; the other corner follows the cursor. 5. The Dynamic Input display now shows the Specify opposite corner: prompts.
| Chapter 1 Exploring the AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT Interface Figure 1.22 The final view you want to achieve in step 3 of the exercise 4. You’re still in Zoom Realtime mode. Click and drag the mouse again to see how you can further adjust your view. To exit, you can select another command besides a Zoom or Pan, press the Esc key, or right-click your mouse and choose Close Preview Window from the context menu. 5.
Working with AutoCAD | Notice that the cursor has turned into a small square. This square is called the pickbox. You also see Select objects: in the Command window and the Dynamic Input display. This message helps remind new users what to do. 3. Move the pickbox over the drawing, placing it on various parts of the clip. Don’t click anything yet. Notice that, as you hover your cursor over objects with the pickbox, they’re highlighted.
| Chapter 1 Exploring the AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT Interface Working with Multiple Files You can have multiple documents open at the same time in AutoCAD. This feature can be especially helpful if you want to exchange parts of drawings between files or if you want another file open for reference. Try the following exercise to see how multiple documents work in AutoCAD: 1. Click the New tool on the Quick Access toolbar to open the Select Template dialog box.
Working with AutoCAD Figure 1.25 | Click here to start the rectangle. Selecting the first point of a rectangle 3. Click another point anywhere in the upper-right region of the drawing area (see Figure 1.26). A rectangle appears. You’ll learn more about the different cursor shapes and what they mean in Chapter 2. Figure 1.26 After you’ve selected the first point of the rectangle, you’ll see a rectangle follow the motion of your mouse. 4. Let’s try copying objects between these two files.
| Chapter 1 Exploring the AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT Interface Figure 1.27 The Zoom All option gives you an overall view of your drawing. Figure 1.28 Grip shown in the 2D drawing. Select this part of the drawing. 9. Right-click and select Clipboard and then Paste. The clip appears at the cursor in the new drawing. 10. Position the clip in the middle of the rectangle you drew earlier and left-click the mouse. The clip is copied into the second drawing. 11. This ends the exercises for this chapter.
Working with AutoCAD | Adding a Predrawn Symbol with the Tool Palettes In the preceding exercise, you saw how you can easily copy an object from one file to another by using the standard Windows Cut and Paste feature. AutoCAD offers several tool palettes that enable you to click and drag predrawn objects into your drawing. You can open the tool palettes by clicking the Tool Palettes tool in the View tab’s Palettes panel, as shown in Figure 1.29. Figure 1.
| Chapter 1 Exploring the AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT Interface In addition to predrawn objects, the tool palettes offer a way to add hatch patterns and other components quickly to your drawing. They’re great tools to help you manage your library of custom, predrawn symbols. Chapter 27, "Managing and Sharing Your Drawings," shows you how to use and customize the tool palettes. The Bottom Line Use the AutoCAD window.
