Wiley AutoCAD 2004 for dummies may 2003 ISBN 0764540459

I do occasionally mention differences with previous versions, going back to the highly popular AutoCAD Release 14, so that everyone has some context and upgraderscan more readily underst

John Wiley & Sons © 2003

This user-friendly guide covers AutoCAD 2004's new interface, conforming with CAD standards, 3D, AutoCAD's various capabilities, and much more.

Tour AutoCAD’s new features, make CAD standards rule, and find the friendlier xref Once upon a time,

architectural drawings were created with—gasp—

pencils, paper, and T-squares Then came AutoCAD, with all its capabilities and complications While this book won’t turn back the clock, it will make it easy to explore AutoCAD 2004’s new interface, conform with CAD standards, get the lowdown on 3D, and discover all the amazing things you and AutoCAD can do.

About the Author

Mark Middlebrook owns a CAD consulting company and maintains a Web site to assist AutoCAD users.

permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, Wiley

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in the United States and other countries, and may not be used withoutwritten permission All other trademarks are the property of their

respective owners Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with anyproduct or vendor mentioned in this book

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completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim anyimplied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose

No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives orwritten sales materials The advice and strategies contained herein maynot be suitable for your situation You should consult with a professionalwhere appropriate Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for anyloss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited

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Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats Somecontent that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.Library of Congress Control Number: 2003101851

also a contributing editor for CADALYST magazine and Webmaster of

markcad.com When he’s not busy being a cad, Mark sells and writes

"Daedalus." AutoCAD 2004 For Dummies is his fifth book on AutoCAD

Dedication

To Puck and Pretzel, two absolute AutoCAD dummies who never cease

to inspire and amuse It was during walks in the woods with them that Ioriginally worked out some of the details of these chapters I’m prettysure that Puck could learn AutoCAD, if only he could figure out how tomanipulate a mouse Pretzel, on the other hand, is too interested in

squirrels to bother with mice

Author’s Acknowledgments

Thanks first of all to Bud Smith, who initiated this book four editions ago,brought me in on it along the way, and finally handed it over to me in totofor this edition I hope that I prove as good a steward as he was a

midwife (or is the gender-neutral term “midspouse”?) Terri Varveris

shepherded the project through the development process and helped all

of us make it more than just another update Dave Byrnes was onceagain a dependably excellent tech editor — he kept me relentlessly

honest and saved me from a few embarrassing mistakes

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through ouronline registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include thefollowing:

Introduction

be seen, but for the present and the near future anyway, AutoCAD iswhere the CAD action is

In its evolution, AutoCAD has grown more complex, in part to keep upwith the increasing complexity of the design and drafting processes thatAutoCAD is intended to serve It’s not enough just to draw nice-lookinglines anymore If you want to play CAD with the big boys and girls, youneed to organize the objects you draw, their properties, and the files inwhich they reside in appropriate ways You need to coordinate your CADwork with other people in your office who will be working on or makinguse of the same drawings You need to be savvy about shipping

drawings around via the Internet

AutoCAD 2004 provides the tools for doing all these things, but it’s notalways easy to figure out which hammer to pick up or which nail to bang

on first With this book, you have an excellent chance of creating a

presentable, usable, printable, and sharable drawing on your first orsecond try without putting a T-square through your computer screen infrustration

Unlike many other For Dummies books, this one does tell you to consult

the official software documentation sometimes AutoCAD is just too bigand complicated for a single book to attempt to describe it completely.This book focuses on AutoCAD 2004 and its slightly less-capable, muchlower-cost sibling, AutoCAD LT 2004 I do occasionally mention

differences with previous versions, going back to the highly popular

AutoCAD Release 14, so that everyone has some context and upgraderscan more readily understand the differences I also mention the importantdifferences between full

using colleagues — are missing This book does not cover the discipline-specific features in AutoCAD-based products such as AutoCAD

AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT, so that you’ll know what you — or your LT-Architectural Desktop, except for some general discussion in Chapter 1,but most of the information in this book applies to the general-purposeAutoCAD features in the AutoCAD 2004-based versions of those

programs as well

AutoCAD has a large, loyal, and dedicated group of long-time users Thisbook may not meet the needs of all these long-time members of the

AutoCAD faithful This book is probably not for you if

You were using AutoCAD when it still had Versions rather thanReleases

If you don’t fall into any of these categories, well, this is definitely thebook for you

However, you do need to have some idea of how to use your computersystem before tackling AutoCAD — and this book You need to have acomputer system with AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT (preferably the 2004version) A printer or plotter and a connection to the Internet will be bighelps, too

You also need to know how to use Windows to copy and delete files,create a folder, and find a file You need to know how to use a mouse toselect (highlight) or to choose (activate) commands, how to close a

window, and how to minimize and maximize windows Make sure thatyou’re familiar with the basics of your operating system before you startwith AutoCAD

If you saw the impressive and apparently random piles of stuff cluttering

my desk while I was writing this book, you’d wonder how I could organize

a chapter, never mind an entire book Nevertheless, I hope you’ll find thatthe book reflects some concerted thought about how to present AutoCAD

The following sections describe the parts that the book breaks down into

Part I : AutoCAD 101

Need to know your way around the AutoCAD screen? Why does

based products that Autodesk sells, and should you be using one of them

AutoCAD even exist, anyway? What are all the different AutoCAD 2004-— for example, AutoCAD LT — instead of AutoCAD? Is everything soslooow because it’s supposed to be slow, or do I have too wimpy a

machine to truly use this wonder of modern-day computing? And why am

I doing this stuff in the first place?

Part I answers all these questions — and more This part also includeswhat may seem like a great deal of excruciating detail about setting up anew drawing in AutoCAD But what’s even more excruciating is to doyour setup work incorrectly and then feel as though AutoCAD is fightingyou every step of the way With a little drawing setup work done in

advance, it won’t

Part II : Let There Be Lines

attempt to print the final version of the drawings due the next day at 9a.m that an inkjet plotter can slide its ink cartridges back and forth in arhythm eerily reminiscent of a head-wagging “nyah-nyah nyah-nyah-

nyah.”

After the concepts preamble, the bulk of this part covers the trio of

activities that you’ll probably spend most of your time in AutoCAD doing:drawing objects, editing them, and zooming and panning to see thembetter on the screen These are the things that you do in order to create

(Whoever said “a picture is worth a thousand words” must not have

counted up the number of words on the average architectural drawing!)This part shows you how to add these essential features to your

drawings

After you’ve gussied up your drawing with text, dimensions, and hatching,you’ll probably want to create a snapshot of it to show off to your client,contractor, or grandma Normal people call this process “printing,” butCAD people aren’t normal, so they call it “plotting.” Whatever you decide

to call it, I’ll show you how to do it

Part IV : Share and Share Alike

sharing features Blocks, external reference files, and raster images

Part V : The Part of Tens

This part contains guidelines that minimize your chances of really

messing up drawings (your own or others’), and techniques for swappingdrawings with other people and accessing them from other computerprograms

There’s a lot of meat packed into these two chapters — juicy tidbits fromyears of drafting, experimentation, and head-shaking at things that don’twork right — not to mention years of compulsive list-making I hope thatyou find these lists help you get on the right track quickly and stay there

Tip This icon tells you that a pointed insight lies ahead that can save

you time and trouble as you use AutoCAD For example, maybe learninghow to type with your toes would help increase your speed in enteringcommands and moving the mouse at the same time (And maybe not .)

Technical Stuff The Technical Stuff icon points out places where you

may find more data than information Unless you’re really ready to findout more about AutoCAD — much more — steer clear of these

paragraphs the first time you read a given section of the book

Warning This icon tells you how to stay out of trouble when living a little

close to the edge Failure to heed its message may have disastrous

consequences for you, your drawing, your computer — and maybe evenall three

Remember Remember when Spock put his hand over McCoy’s face

and implanted a suggestion in his brain that later saved Spock’s life? Thisicon is like that Helpful reminders of things you already know but thatmay not be right at the tip of your brain or whatever

New for 2004 This icon points to new stuff in AutoCAD 2004 It’s mostly

designed for those of you who know AutoCAD pretty well already and justwant to find out what’s new in this version New AutoCAD users startingout their CAD working lives with AutoCAD 2004 will find this stuff

learnin’ to the grizzled AutoCAD veterans in the office who don’t yet knowabout all the cool, new features

interesting, too — especially when they can show off their new book- AutoCAD LT This icon highlights differences between AutoCAD LT and

AutoCAD If you’re using AutoCAD LT 2004, you’ll find out what you’remissing compared to “full” AutoCAD 2004 If your friend is using LT, you’llknow where to look to find stuff in AutoCAD 2004 to brag about

You probably can figure out for yourself all the information in this section,but here are the details just in case

Text you type into the program at the command line, in a dialog box, in a

text box, and so on appears in boldface type Examples of AutoCAD

prompts appear in a special typeface, as does any other text in thebook that echoes a message, a word, or one or more lines of text thatactually appear on-screen Sequences of prompts that appear in theAutoCAD command line area have a shaded background, like so:

another way to start the same command (for example, in this example,type SAVEAS and press Enter), you’re welcome to do it that way instead.Many AutoCAD commands have shortcut (fewer letter) versions for thebenefit of those who like to type commands at the AutoCAD commandprompt In this book, I format command names with the shortcut letters inuppercase and the other letters in lower case, so that you become

familiar with the shortcuts and can use them if you want to So when you

see an instruction like “run the DimLInear command to draw a linear dimension,” it means “for a linear dimension, type DIMLINEAR, or DLI for

short, at the command line, and then press the Enter key.”

Part I: AutoCAD 101

Chapter 1: Introducing AutoCAD 2004

Chapter 2: Le Tour de AutoCAD 2004

Chapter 3: Setup for Success

In this part

AutoCAD is more than just another application program, it’s a completeenvironment for drafting and design So if you’re new to AutoCAD, youneed to know several things to get off to a good start — especially how touse the command line area and set up your drawing properly These keyfacts are described in this part of the book

If you’re an experienced AutoCAD user, you’ll be most interested in thehigh points of the new release, including some new interface

components, and how to ensure that your drawings are set up correctly in

model space and paper space All that is here, too.

Chapter 1: Introducing AutoCAD 2004

Whatever your current situation and motivation, I hope that you enjoy theprocess of becoming proficient with AutoCAD Drawing with AutoCAD ischallenging at first, but it’s a challenge worth meeting CAD rewardsthose who think creatively about their work and look for ways to do itbetter You can always learn more, discover a new trick, or improve theefficiency and quality of your drawing production

AutoCAD started as an MS-DOS-only program, when real men and

women typed commands and didn’t use toolbars or dialog boxes

Autodesk ported AutoCAD to many GUI (graphical user interface)

operating systems, including Macintosh, several flavors of UNIX, andWindows Autodesk now develops AutoCAD for Microsoft Windows only.(AutoCAD 2004 works with Windows XP, 2000, and NT 4.0.) AutoCAD’snot the easiest program to learn, but it’s gotten easier and more

environment, but you bump into some vestiges of its MS-DOS legacy —especially the command line This book guides you around the bumpsand minimizes the bruises

Figure 1-1 shows a simple building plan on the AutoCAD 2004 screen

Figure 1-1: Plan to be floored by the drawing capabilities of AutoCAD

2004

Why choose AutoCAD? AutoCAD is just the starting point of a wholeindustry of software and hardware products designed to work with

AutoCAD Autodesk has helped this process along immensely by

designing a series of programming interfaces to AutoCAD that other

companies — and Autodesk itself — have used to extend the application.Some of the add-on products have become such winners that Autodeskacquired them and incorporated them into its own products When youcompare all the resources — including the add-ons, extensions, trainingcourses, books, and so on — AutoCAD doesn’t have much competition

To take full advantage of AutoCAD in your work environment, you need to

be aware of the DWG file format, the format in which AutoCAD savesdrawings In most cases an older version of AutoCAD can’t read a DWGfile created by a newer version of AutoCAD

Newer versions of AutoCAD can read files created by older

versions

You can use the “save as” option in newer versions to save thefile to some older DWG formats

Release Year

DWG File Format

Release 13 AutoCAD LT95 1994 Acad R13

people — at least in other companies — who use AutoCAD versions asold as Release 14

Warning Many programs claim to be DWG-compatible — that is,

capable of converting data to and from AutoCAD’s DWG format Butachieving this compatibility is a difficult thing to do well Even a smallerror in file conversion can have results ranging in severity from annoying

to appalling If you exchange DWG files with people who use other CADprograms, be prepared to spend time finding and fixing translation

problems

AutoCAD users who are running different versions of AutoCAD also have

to do extra work to share files Usually, the people with the lowest-numbered version of AutoCAD have to ask their colleagues to “save as”their version This extra work of different versions increases the pressure

on people who work together to upgrade, or not upgrade, together

People on earlier releases are likely to get newer files that they want touse but can’t open in their version of AutoCAD; people on later releasesare worried that features will disappear from their drawings when theysave the files in an earlier format

Warning AutoCAD 2004 does not include an option for saving files to

the R14 DWG file format This omission creates problems if you want tosend DWG files to clients or consultants who are still using AutoCADRelease 14 (And there are quite a few of these folks — R14 was

popular, and AutoCAD 2000 through 2002 didn’t tempt everyone to

upgrade.) See the end of this chapter for more information about this

AutoCAD-based applications

Autodesk has expanded AutoCAD into a whole product line of

programs with AutoCAD as a base and specialized, discipline-specificadd-ons built on top and included as one complete product As a

Release 2004 user, you’ll be looking for the AutoCAD 2004-compatibleversions of these tools, which should appear a few months after

AutoCAD 2004 ships These discipline-specific flavors of AutoCADinclude Autodesk Architectural Desktop and Autodesk Building

Systems (mechanical, electrical, and plumbing), Autodesk MechanicalDesktop, Autodesk Map, AutoCAD Land Desktop, Autodesk Survey,and Autodesk Civil Design

To make matters even more confusing, Autodesk now offers AutodeskRevit and Autodesk Inventor, software applications that compete withArchitectural Desktop and Mechanical Desktop, respectively Revit andInventor are not based on AutoCAD; they sacrifice AutoCAD

compatibility in favor of a more fundamentally design- and 3D-orientedapproach to CAD Whether they ultimately will replace the traditionalAutoCAD-based applications remains to be seen

In addition to the products from Autodesk, thousands of AutoCAD add-on products — both discipline-specific and general-purpose — areavailable from other software developers These companion products

are sometimes called third-party applications Visit partner

products.autodesk.com/ for more information about what’s

available

AutoCAD LT 2004 is one of the best deals around, a shining example ofthe old 80/20 rule: roughly 80 percent of the capabilities of AutoCAD

2004 for roughly 20 percent of the money Like AutoCAD 2004, AutoCAD

LT 2004 runs on mainstream Windows computers and doesn’t requireany additional hardware devices With AutoCAD LT, you can be a player

in the world of AutoCAD, the world’s leading CAD program, for a

comparatively low starting cost

AutoCAD LT 2004 is a very close cousin to AutoCAD 2004 Autodeskcreated AutoCAD LT 2004 by starting with the AutoCAD 2004 program,taking out a few features to justify charging a lower price, adding a couple

of features to enhance ease of use versus full AutoCAD, and testing theresult

As a result, AutoCAD LT 2004 looks and works much like AutoCAD 2004.The opening screen and menus of the two programs are nearly identical.(LT is missing a few commands from the AutoCAD 2004 menus.)

In fact, the major difference between the programs has nothing to do withthe programs themselves The major difference is that AutoCAD LT lackssupport for several customization and programming languages that areused to develop AutoCAD add-ons So almost none of the add-on

programs or utilities offered by Autodesk and others are available to LTusers

AutoCAD LT also has only limited 3D support You can view and edit 3Dobjects in AutoCAD LT, so you can work with drawings created in

AutoCAD that contain 3D objects However, you cannot create true 3Dobjects

The lack of 3D object creation in LT is not as big a negative for manyusers as you might think Despite a lot of hype from the computer pressand CAD vendors (including Autodesk), 3D CAD remains a relativelyspecialized activity The majority of people use CAD programs to create2D drawings

significantly from that of AutoCAD AutoCAD was originally designed formaximum power and then modified somewhat to improve ease of use.AutoCAD LT shares this same heritage

Fortunately, the minimal differences between LT and AutoCAD mean thatafter you have climbed that learning curve, you’ll have the same greatview You’ll have almost the full range of AutoCAD’s 2D drafting tools,and you’ll be able to exchange DWG files with AutoCAD users withoutdata loss

AutoCAD LT This book covers AutoCAD 2004, but almost all of the

information in it applies to AutoCAD LT 2004 The icon that you see at theleft of this paragraph highlights significant differences

DWG file compatibility: AutoCAD 2004 introduces a new

version of the DWG file format, which older versions of AutoCADcan’t open You can use the “save as” option to create DWG filesfor users of AutoCAD 2000 and 2002, but not for AutoCAD

Release 14 and earlier versions

Application compatibility: If you use third-party applications

with a previous version of AutoCAD, there’s a good chance thatthey won’t work with AutoCAD 2004 That’s certainly true of

applications developed with the ARX (AutoCAD Runtime

eXtension) and VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) programminginterfaces

Tip Many LSP (AutoLISP) programs written for previous

versions of AutoCAD work with AutoCAD 2004

Increased computer system requirements: For AutoCAD

2004, Autodesk recommends a 500 MHz Pentium III or betterprocessor, at least 128MB of RAM, 1024 x 768 or higher displayresolution, 300MB of available hard disk space, and an Internetconnection

Before you upgrade

If you plan to upgrade from a previous version, such as AutoCAD 2002,

2000, or Release 14, these are the things that you need to think about:

Is your hardware adequate? Check the requirements in the

Are you exchanging DWG files with others who use

AutoCAD 2000 through 2002? If so, remember to “save as” to

the AutoCAD 2000 format before sending files to them Or getthem to upgrade, too!

Are you exchanging DWG files with others who still use

AutoCAD Release 14? If so, be prepared for extra-special file

exchange hassles AutoCAD 2004 can’t save to the R14 DWGformat You can save to the Release 12 DXF format (see Chapter

17 for instructions), which AutoCAD Release 14 will open, but theresulting file will be “dumbed down” to make the file palatable to a10-year-old version of AutoCAD Life is happier for everyoneinvolved if those AutoCAD Release 14 users to whom you sendDWG files to upgrade to AutoCAD 2004

2004 has more

Upgrading is worth the effort Although AutoCAD 2000 through 2002

included plenty of new and changed stuff, it wasn’t obvious that a lot ofthat stuff would help people make better drawings more efficiently Much

of the new stuff in AutoCAD 2004 benefits everyday drafting work andshould make your relationship with AutoCAD a happier one Among myfavorites are

The AutoCAD 2004 CD-browser screen includes separate links forinstalling the main AutoCAD 2004 software and the Express Tools, somake sure that you run both setup programs If your menu bar doesn’tinclude the Express menu shown in Figure 1-1 earlier in this chapter,you need to install the Express Tools from your AutoCAD 2004 CD.Just pop the CD in and, when the CD-browser page appears, click theAutoCAD Express Tools Volumes 1–9 link

A cleaner, more functional interface, especially when you launchAutoCAD and create new drawings (See Chapter 2.)

Automatic file compression, which reduces DWG file sizes by 10–50% and drawing load times by more modest amounts

Chapters 13 and 15.)

Better tools for CAD standards compliance (See Chapter 14.)Restoration of the ever-popular Express Tools, which came withAutoCAD Release 14 and 2000 but disappeared from 2000i and2002

plunge.

Chapter 2: Le Tour de AutoCAD 2004

In This Chapter

Touring the AutoCAD 2004 screen

Going bar-hopping: title bars, the menu bar, toolbars, and thestatus bar

beneath that pretty face — and literally beneath the drawing area, right atthe bottom of the AutoCAD program window — is a weird but essentialholdover from the DOS days: the AutoCAD command line area Thecommand line is one of the few un-Windows-like things in AutoCAD thatyou’ll have to come to terms with, and this chapter shows you how

Tip Like the rest of the book, this chapter is written for someone who

has used other Windows programs but has little or no experience withAutoCAD If you’re experienced with Windows versions of AutoCAD,much of this chapter is old hat for you Just scan through it and read theparagraphs marked with the New In 2004 icon, which indicates

something truly new

Finding your way around AutoCAD 2004 can be an odd experience Yourecognize from other Windows applications much of the appearance andworkings of the program, such as its toolbars and pull-down menus,

which you use for entering commands or changing system settings Butother aspects of the program’s appearance — and some of the ways inwhich you work with it — are quite different from nearly any other

program

You can, in many cases, tell the program what to do in at least four ways

— pick a toolbar icon, pick from the pull-down menus, type at the

command line, or pick from the right-click menus — none of which isnecessarily the best method to use for every task The experience ismuch like that of having to act as several different characters in a play;you’re likely to forget your lines (whichever “you” you are at the time!)every now and then

Tip You can get started familiarizing yourself with AutoCAD 2004 by

exploring the menus at the top of the screen These menus enable you toaccess most of the program’s functions and are the easiest-to-remembermethod of issuing commands When you want to get real work done,you’ll need to combine the pull-down menus with other methods —

especially typing options at the command line or choosing them from theright-click menu I show you how throughout this book

Technical Stuff Screen test yields high profile

The screen shots and descriptions in this chapter reflect the default

configuration of AutoCAD — that is, the way the screen looks if youuse the standard version of AutoCAD (not a flavored version such asArchitectural Desktop) and haven’t messed with the display settings.You can change the appearance of the screen with settings on theDisplay tab of the Options dialog box (choose ToolsðOptionsðDisplay)and by dragging toolbars and other screen components

The change I’ve made is to configure the drawing area background to

be white instead of black, because the figures in the book show up

background

If you’re using a flavored version of AutoCAD, or if someone has

already changed your configuration or added a third-party program toyour setup, your screen may look different than the figures in this

book You can restore the default configuration — including displaysettings — with the Reset button on the Options dialog box’s Profilestab (AutoCAD LT doesn’t include the Profiles feature, so LT users areout of luck here.) But before you click the Reset button, consider

whether the modified configuration might be useful to someone in thefuture — like you! If so, first click the Add to List button to create a new

profile Enter a pithy name for the new profile, such as AutoCAD

default Then select the new profile that you created, click the Set

Current button to make it the current profile, and finally click the Resetbutton In the future, you can switch between your modified and

default configurations with the Set Current button

Windows control buttons: Minimize, Maximize/Restore, and

Close

Each drawing window within the AutoCAD program window hasits own title bar that lists the name of the drawing You use thecontrol buttons on a drawing window’s title bar to minimize,

maximize/un-maximize, or close that drawing, not the entire

AutoCAD program

Tip As in other Windows programs, if you maximize a drawing’s window,

it expands to fill the entire drawing area The drawing’s control buttonsmove onto the menu bar, below the control buttons for the AutoCAD

program window; the drawing’s name appears in the AutoCAD title bar

To un-maximize the drawing so you can see any other drawings that youhave open, click the lower un-maximize button, as shown in Figure 2-2