Topic: 10 tips for 10 years

[enderprime]

Now that I've crossed the 10 year mark in CAD experience, one of my office mates jokingly asked me to compile a list of 10 quick tips / hints / secrets / shortcuts every new user should know (we use AutoCAD and Civil 3D for survey / pipeline work). I tried to think of the simplest but most essential and time-saving things that changed my drafting life, and this is what I came up with.

Feel free to add your own list.

• Know your Ctrl keyboard shortcuts:
  
  • Ctrl + Shift + C = copy with base point
  • Ctrl + Shift + V = paste as block
  • Ctrl + R = cycle through multiple viewports in the same drawing
  • Ctrl + Tab = cycle through multiple drawings in the same AutoCAD instance
• AUTOREGEN : set to off to stop those slow automatic regens on larger drawings
• CHSPACE : use to push objects from paperspace to modelspace and vice versa
• LAYFRZ & LAYTHW : Freeze (hide) layers you don't currently need, and thaw (show) all layers
• LAYISO & LAYUNISO : Isolate objects on the same layer to make changes without affecting everything
• SYSVDLG : open a dialog box where you can see details for every system variable, and make changes
• FILLET : set radius to 0 and select 2 lines to join as corner, instead of extending and/or trimming them both manually, also faster than PEDIT (Join) operations for polylines most of the time
• UCS II toolbar : save your UCS views by name and switch between World and different UCS views quickly, can also be found on the View tab of the ribbon on newer versions
• Do not EXPLODE your blocks, but if you must, use BURST instead, and your existing attribute data will be maintained instead of reset back to meaningless strings in resulting text objects
• QSELECT : select drawing objects by using query-like filtering such as Layer = 0, etc. Learn it. Love it.

[dgorsman]

Sing it with me: nanananananaBATTMAN!!!!!   

Right-click context menus.

BYLAYER.  BYLAYER.  BYLAYER.

Rule of One: LTSCALE = 1, MSLTSCALE = 1, PSLTSCALE = 1

Did I mention BYLAYER already?  Yes?  Good.

IT/CAD support will NOT let you borrow or sign out a license for home use.  Leave work, at work.

Software changes.  Plan for it.  Live with it.  We're just along for the ride.

Backups are not just for DWG files.  Back up the support files and installers as well.

Draw to an appropriate level of detail.  Those cool curved louvers and internal details on the heater only make the file bigger and will never be seen at 1:30.

I put down BYLAYER, right?

[Daniel J. Ellis]

Sing it with me: nanananananaBATTMAN!!!!!   

Draw to an appropriate level of detail.  Those cool curved louvers and internal details on the heater only make the file bigger and will never be seen at 1:30.

Often easier said than done, unfortunately 

dJE

[ronjonp]

1. Learn how to write code. 

[enderprime]

Rule of One: LTSCALE = 1, MSLTSCALE = 1, PSLTSCALE = 1

We actually do LTSCALE = 1/2 plot scale

The right-click context menus are a common topic of debate also. Me and most of our faster drafters don't use them, because the speed increase from Right-click = Enter or Repeat last command are immense. It's one of the first things I turn off on a new workstation. On the other hand, Civil 3D and other things like to hide certain things in those menus that can't be easily found elsewhere, so sometimes we are looking for something that people with context menus see all the time. It's a tough call, ultimately I turned on time-sensitive right-click and it's sort of the best of both worlds after some adjustment.

[enderprime]

1. Learn how to write code. 

My #10 was simply going to say LEARN LISP lol

[JNieman]

I don't use right click menus to repeat commands or finish them; I use spacebar/enter.

I use right click contextual menus for some things though.  I find it easier/faster to shift+rt-click to pull up snaps, to use things like "Perpendicular" because I don't want that /always/ running, but I use it semi-often.  shift+rightclick, 'p' and it's done.  I'm hitting the hotkey for the snap I want before I even realize the menu has appeared.  May as well not even have the menu - I use it for keyboard shortcuts mostly and don't actually use it as a GUI.  It's like contextual keyboard hotkeys.

[Krushert]

Software changes.  Plan for it.  Live with it.  We're just along for the ride.

Read up on the new features with each version and then distribute to your coworkers. 

However I have found that you can lead a whole herd of horses to water but the only ones that drink are the ones that want to drink.

[NOT SURE]

Point Filters

[NOT SURE]

IT/CAD support will NOT let you borrow or sign out a license for home use.  Leave work, at work.

Yes I will, and no I won't. Respectively.

[Krushert]

IT/CAD support will NOT let you borrow or sign out a license for home use.  Leave work, at work.

Yes I will, and no I won't. Respectively.

It sure is nice to work at home when you have a sick kid or waiting on a freakin Repairman to show up.   Just saying.

[JNieman]

IT/CAD support will NOT let you borrow or sign out a license for home use.  Leave work, at work.

Yes I will, and no I won't. Respectively.

It sure is nice to work at home when you have a sick kid or waiting on a freakin Repairman to show up.   Just saying.

Word.

We use standalone licenses anyways, so it's moot for me as far as licensing goes.  But yea, sometimes I can't be at the office.

[dgorsman]

Can be nice.  Until somebody takes that license home and uses it to moonlight for a competitor who is submitting a competing bid for the same project we are working on.  Some people have NO sense of conflict of interest.

[rkmcswain]

We actually do LTSCALE = 1/2 plot scale

Same here. Not sure exactly how that got started, but at one time (over 20 years ago) someone created a LIN file to match some local government standards, but of course where the spec called for a 1/2" dash, the LIN maker made it 1", etc. etc. --- so all these years LTSCALE = 0.5 (or 1/2 plot scale)

[rkmcswain]

10. QSELECT : select drawing objects by using query-like filtering such as Layer = 0, etc. Learn it. Love it.

10a: FILTER. Use it with QSelect. They each can do things the other can't.