Back to Basics: Changing Your Background Color

Let me save you some time if you're a long time user of AutoCAD - browse away and come back later.


If you are a new-ish user of CAD, the following may be of interest to you.

The following instructions will work for any AutoCAD-based product pretty much any version you may have running. (Unless you are, like, in v11 DOS or some shiat)

Here are the instructions as far as changing the background color in AutoCAD:

1) Type OPTIONS at the CAD command line (or right-click anywhere on the screen and select Options from the menu).

2) Go to the Display Tab.
3) Click the Colors button.

4) Click the color pull-down and select black.


5) Click Apply and Close.
6)Last click OK to the Options box.

AutoCAD will stay this way from now on. Now if you are interested in more nitty-gritty, keep reading.

The colors and everything else inside the Options dialog box are stored in your Profile. By default, Civil 3D loads with "Unnamed Profile" and all your changes get saved there. If you like your settings and want to save yourself some time if you ever need to reinstall, you can export your Profile out to an ARG file.

I feel I've gone too far. One of these days I'll do a more detailed post on Profiles vs CUI's but for now we'll keep it simple.