Wednesday, November 02, 2011

AutoCAD 2012 Tips & Tricks


I put together the following sheet for a short class I did the other day.  Do enjoy. 

Polyline Editing Tips
Key-in
Type
What it does:
PEDITACCEPT
Sys. variable <1>
Automatically accepts conversion of lines, arcs and splines when joining a polyline.
REVERSE
command
Allows you to reverse the direction of a line.  This way linetypes with text appear upright when needed.

Text Tips
Key-in
Type
What it does:
TEXTMASK
express tool
Automatically creates a wipeout to block items behind text.
TEXTUNMASK
express tool
Removes same
QTEXT
Sys. Variable or
In drawings with lots of text, it makes text look “blocky” on zooming and panning to improve speed and performance.
TEXTTOFRONT
Command
Forces the draw order of all text to the front
BURST
express tool
Alternative to explode that keeps attribute text at its current value
TEXTSIZE
Drawing setting
Sets the default height for text where the style contains a text height of  0.

Viewport Tips
Key-in
Type
What it does:
MVSETUP
Command
One-stop shop for aligning and rotating multiple viewports. 
MVIEW
Command
Creates a new, rectangular paperspace viewport
REA
Command
Stands for regen all.  Best for regen-ing when you have multiple viewports

Misc. Cool Tips
Key-in
Type
What it does:
ADDSELECTED
command
Helps create same object type on the same layer without using an icon. (Also available in the right-click menu for any object)
SELECTSIMILAR
Command
Selects objects that have the same layer and are of the same object type.
Shift + spacebar
Hot key
Cycles through objects that are on top of each other so you don’t need to change draw order on the fly.
Grip + spacebar
Hot key
After you click a grip for a block, you can force a simple move command into rotate, mirror scale or copy by hitting the spacebar.
Tab to cycle commands
Hot key
Key-in the first few letters the command or variable you are looking for.  Hit tab to search for items with those letters.
TASKBAR
Sys Variable <1>
Instead of “stacking up” open files on your Windows task bar, this shows open drawings as an icon.
OVERKILL
Express tool
Cleans up a drawing by removing duplicate lines
SELECTIONANNODISPLAY
Sys variable <0>
Controls if “ghosted” display of annotative text appears.
HATCHTOBACK
Command               
Forces the draw order of all hatches  to the back
ZOOMFACTOR
Sys variable <3>to<100>
Controls how “zoomy” your mouse wheel is. 100 is the biggest zoom per turn.
CHSPACE
Command
Forces paperspace objects to model and vice versa.
SETBYLAYER
Command
Forces objects that have properties set that differ from the layer settings to conform.
OOPS
Command
Brings back last deleted object without using undo.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Overkill is no longer an express tool, it has been integrated into the core product

Louisa Holland said...

Oh yeah in 2012 OVERKILL is a real command. I created this sheet for 2011 initially. The "tab to find commands" is no longer needed in 2012 also.

Tom Richardson said...

How well does the oops command work with Civil 3D objects? In the past I've had issues with using undo if I erased c3d objects by mistake. It comes back to haunt me later if the objects are feature lines or pipe network objects.

Louisa Holland said...

INTERESTING...I've never tried it before you asked so I did. For single C3D objects (i.e. a table, a surface model, a group of labels) it works great. For dependent/compound objects (i.e. profile views, section views) it only brings back the grid, not the associated data. There are so many dependencies, though - I wouldn't rely on it for major stuff.

Tony said...

Great post