AutoCAD Tips & Tricks for Civil Engineers Lynn Allen Cadalyst columnist & Autodesk Technical Evangelist AutoCAD Tips & Tricks for Civil Engineers

The New Sheet Set Manager (SSM) organizes for You! Simplified: Drawing organization right click plotting Transmittal sets Archiving Standards compliance Everyone stays in sync with the project New DST file format AutoCAD 2005 The new Sheet Set Manager in AutoCAD 2005 provides: An easy way to collate drawing sheets into logical sets of drawings (customers can organize DWG’s in to sets using the same system as they do on paper Customers can store project information for later use in drawing title blocks or project title sheets Drawing can be batch plotting, published to DWF, eTransmitted or archived with a simple right click. No more hunting around for files trying to ensure you plotting all the drawings in the set Know your contractor or client will get all the files they need to make design changes Project standards can be build into the sheet set so all project drawings use the same CAD Standards Team members can all access the sheet set information simultaneous so that they can keep track of what other team members are adding to the project. You can quickly assemble sheet sets using existing drawings, propagate sheet standards over multiple projects,

Keys, Keys, Keys Clean Screen (Control+0) Double click on the toolbar handles to float Control+R to cycle through all of your viewports Control+A to select all the objects in your drawing Control to cycle through objects Tab to cycle through object snaps Navigate through layouts with Control+PageUp and Control+PageDown Hold down right mouse button to clear grips Shift for more than one hot grip Shift to remember distances and angles in gripmode Arrow up and down through commands Control+Tab to cycle through open drawings

Everyday Timesavers New OSNAP (keyboard modifier) – Midpoint between two points (M2P/MTP) Zoom to Object(s) Maximize Viewport Revcloud – new Calligraphy Option Delete Named Layer Filters Right Click Customization Trim/Extend Shortcut (enter to select cutting edges/boundaries) ‘CAL – Geometric Calculator Some additional timesavers…

Secret System Variables SYSVDLG – friendly dialog box for your system variables MAXSORT – maximum number of named objects AutoCAD will sort MTJIGSTRING – MTEXT sample string MBUTTONPAN – Third button accesses OSNAP menu OSNAPHATCH – controls OSNAPS with hatch patterns PEDITACCEPT – turns off extra prompt in PEDIT PLINEGEN – Tells Linetypes to traverse across vertices TASKBAR – Open drawings appear on the taskbar UCSFOLLOW – tells the UCS icon to change to the plan view whenever the UCS is modified XREFTYPE – set attachment or overlay as default

Bhatch Tips With Bhatch, you can: Assign draworder to hatch objects Hatch an area with a boundary gap Trim a hatch to a new boundary

MTEXT Tips Supports a background mask New Symbols Click outside of dialog box to exit command quickly MTJIGSTRING System Variable TEXTTOFRONT command Mtext has been improved to incorporate tabs and in place editting Word Docs come into AutoCAD with full fidelity 3. MIRRTEXT System Variable no limit to the page size of Excel OLE documents when using Microsoft Office Windows XP SP1 How much time do you spend aligning and updating annotations? How many notes in your files are made up of single line text objects? When you copy and paste notes from Microsoft Word, does the formatting get jumbled? Formatting problems won’t be a problem any longer. The Multiline Text (MTEXT) Editor has been updated, giving you the capability to put indents and tab stops into your annotations. Even pre-formatted text will paste as-is into the new MTEXT editor. You also have in-place editing capabilities, letting you see how the text will look like on the display without the dialog box getting in your way. NOTE TO SPEAKER: Ask audience, “Who has a need to format text in their drawings?” How do you currently mark-up designs, red pen and paper? How long does this process take? AutoCAD 2004 now has Revision Clouds, enabling you to perform markups on your design files.

Awesome Express Tools Reset Dim Text Value SuperHatch Layer Walk Burst Make Linetype Edittime Flatten Overkill (Deletes Duplicate Objects) Layer Delete and Layer Merge Change Space/Align Space

Embed Drawings into PPT! Insert

Powerpoint Steps: Insert Object Right Click on Control Icon DWF Viewer Control =>Properties Select the DWF

Startup switches Target - "C:\Program Files\AutoCAD 2005\acad.exe“ /b run a specific script file /t template file /p profile /v view name /nologo starts AutoCAD without logo screen /layout displays a specific layout in a specified drawing file /nossm turns off the Sheet Set Manager /set displays a specific sheet set For more info: look up “Customize Startup” in help file or visit www.cadalyst.com

Easter Egg Shift+Ctrl+pick

AutoCAD 2005 lynn.allen@autodesk.com www.autodesk.com/lynnallen Insert slide for VARs and ATCs… lynn.allen@autodesk.com www.autodesk.com/lynnallen