Lee Ambrosius was a resident of a cubicle farm for about eight years. One day he decided that he wanted to do something different, so he went into business for himself. In 2005, Lee decided to venture off into the CAD industry as an independent consultant and programmer as the owner of HyperPics, LLC in De Pere, Wisconsin, and on the Web at www.hyperpics.com. He has been using AutoCAD since 1994, when he was first exposed to Release 12 for DOS, and has been customizing and programming AutoCAD since 1996. Lee has been an AutoCAD consultant and trainer for 10 years and is both an Autodesk Authorized Author and an Autodesk Authorized Developer. During his past 10 years in the CAD industry, Lee has authored a variety of works that include articles for CAD magazines and white papers for Autodesk. He has also been a contributing author for a few AutoCAD books. Lee has done technical editing for the two most recent editions of AutoCAD For Dummies and the three most recent editions of AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT Bible. AutoCAD & AutoCAD LT All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies is his first venture into coauthoring a book.
by Lee Ambrosius and David Byrnes AutoCAD ® & AutoCAD LT ® ALL-IN-ONE DESK REFERENCE FOR DUMmIES ‰ 01_752606 ffirs.qxp 6/28/06 7:56 PM Page iii 01_752606 ffirs.qxp 6/28/06 7:56 PM Page ii AutoCAD ® & AutoCAD LT ® ALL-IN-ONE DESK REFERENCE FOR DUMmIES ‰ 01_752606 ffirs.qxp 6/28/06 7:56 PM Page i 01_752606 ffirs.qxp 6/28/06 7:56 PM Page ii by Lee Ambrosius and David Byrnes AutoCAD ® & AutoCAD LT ® ALL-IN-ONE DESK REFERENCE FOR DUMmIES ‰ 01_752606 ffirs.qxp 6/28/06 7:56 PM Page iii AutoCAD ® & AutoCAD LT ® All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies ® Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. 111 River Street Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774 www.wiley.com Copyright © 2006 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published simultaneously in Canada No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permit- ted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46256, (317) 572-3447, fax (317) 572-4355, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions . Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS. THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION. THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPE- TENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM. THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FURTHER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE. FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ. For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002. For technical support, please visit www.wiley.com/techsupport . Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Library of Congress Control Number: 2006920621 ISBN-13: 978-0-471--75260-8 ISBN-10: 0-471-75260-6 Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1O/RY/QX/QW/IN 01_752606 ffirs.qxp 6/28/06 7:56 PM Page iv About the Authors Lee Ambrosius was a resident of a cubicle farm for about eight years. One day he decided that he wanted to do something different, so he went into business for himself. In 2005, Lee decided to venture off into the CAD indus- try as an independent consultant and programmer as the owner of HyperPics, LLC in De Pere, Wisconsin, and on the Web at www.hyperpics.com . He has been using AutoCAD since 1994, when he was first exposed to Release 12 for DOS, and has been customizing and programming AutoCAD since 1996. Lee has been an AutoCAD consultant and trainer for 10 years and is both an Autodesk Authorized Author and an Autodesk Authorized Developer. During his past 10 years in the CAD industry, Lee has authored a variety of works that include articles for CAD magazines and white papers for Autodesk. He has also been a contributing author for a few AutoCAD books. Lee has done technical editing for the two most recent editions of AutoCAD For Dummies and the three most recent editions of AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT Bible. AutoCAD & AutoCAD LT All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies is his first venture into coauthoring a book. David Byrnes began his drafting career on the boards in 1979 and discovered computer-assisted doodling shortly thereafter. He first learned AutoCAD with version 1.4, around the time when personal computers switched from steam to diesel power. Dave is based in Vancouver, Canada, and has been an AutoCAD consultant and trainer for fifteen years. Dave is an AutoCAD Authorized Author, a contributing editor for Cadalyst magazine, and has been a contributing author to ten books on AutoCAD. Dave teaches AutoCAD and other computer graphics applications at Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design and British Columbia Institute of Technology in Vancouver. Dave has tech edited six editions of AutoCAD For Dummies and is coauthor of AutoCAD 2007 For Dummies. 01_752606 ffirs.qxp 6/28/06 7:56 PM Page v 01_752606 ffirs.qxp 6/28/06 7:56 PM Page vi Dedication From Lee: To Kristina, Isaac, Amber, and Chloe; my wife and lovely kids for hanging in there during the long hours I was working on this book. I also can’t forget everyone else who has had some influence on my career, through both the good and the bad. From Dave: To Anna and Delia, the two women in my life, who remind me there are other things besides keyboards and mice (and sometimes they have to try REALLY hard). Authors’ Acknowledgments Lee Ambrosius: I have to give a special thanks to the great folks at Wiley for being supportive through this entire project and giving me this opportunity. Next, I want to thank David for letting me be a coauthor on this project. Moving up from technical editor to coauthor was a big step — thanks for giving me the chance. The next two people were very inspirational on this project and helped keep things moving along: Colleen Totz Diamond and Tiffany Franklin. I think we made it. Thanks to Shaan Hurley, Bud Schroeder, Kelly Miller, and the other great pro- fessionals at Autodesk for taking the time to answer questions as they came up during this project. Last, but not least, thanks to our technical editor, Mark Douglas. Mark is most definitely not a stranger to AutoCAD; he is blazing his own trail in the CAD community as a respected individual who is always willing to help out a fellow user in need. David Byrnes: Thanks to Mark Middlebrook for bringing me aboard the Dummies train and for collaborating on the initial proposal and table of con- tents for this book. Thanks, also, to Lee Ambrosius for joining up in the book’s darkest days and for picking up more and more of the project as time went on. Thanks, too, to colleagues and friends at Autodesk — Shaan Hurley, Nate Bartley, and Bud Schroeder — who never seem to mind being asked even the dumbest questions. At Wiley, thanks to Terri Varveris, who got the project off the ground, and Tiffany Ma, who shepherded it through with enthusiasm and an unbelievably awesome degree of patience. It was also a great pleasure to work with project editor, Colleen Totz Diamond, who deserves medals for patience and diplomacy! And by no means last (someone has to bring up the rear), thanks to Mark Douglas for taking on the tech editing job. Mark’s expertise and enthusi- asm are well known and respected in the AutoCAD community, and we’re delighted to have him with us. 01_752606 ffirs.qxp 6/28/06 7:56 PM Page vii [...]... — which include 2D and 3D drafting, printing and sharing designs, and customizing and programming About This Book The AutoCAD & AutoCAD LT All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies gives you an understanding of all the main features that you need to know in order to be productive with AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT The All-in-One Desk References For Dummies are much different from other For Dummies books you may... single and multiline text objects and tables The chapter also includes formatting specific characteristics of text and tables, performing spell checking, and doing a find -and- replace on text strings Book IV: LT Differences Book IV focuses on AutoCAD LT and how it is different from AutoCAD, along with using it in the same environment as AutoCAD and expanding AutoCAD LT through customization and other... Patterns and Fills .249 Book IV: LT Differences .251 Chapter 1: The LT Difference 253 Understanding the Boundaries and Limitations of AutoCAD LT 253 Determining Whether AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT Is Best for You 258 Chapter 2: Extending AutoCAD LT 261 Customizing AutoCAD LT 261 It’s in the script 261 Linetype and hatch... to know what features are missing from AutoCAD LT that are in AutoCAD At times, you may not know the differences between the two programs, and these paragraphs can help you determine whether you should be using AutoCAD instead of AutoCAD LT This icon highlights what’s new in AutoCAD 2007 6 AutoCAD & AutoCAD LT All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies Book I AutoCAD Basics ... topics that include CAD standards and file sharing, as well as how to use electronic files for project collaboration You gain an understanding of the concepts behind CAD standards, as well as how to use the available CAD standards tools to help maintain and enforce CAD standards Book IX: Customizing AutoCAD Book IX covers techniques that are used to customize AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT, which allows you to... .19 AutoCAD menus 20 AutoCAD toolbars 21 Palettes 23 Drawing area 25 The floating command window 26 The status bar .27 Communicating with Your Software 28 The command line 28 Dynamic input .29 Dialog boxes 29 xii AutoCAD & AutoCAD LT All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies Running AutoCAD Commands ... Math functions 695 String functions 696 List functions 696 xxvi AutoCAD & AutoCAD LT All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies Data conversion functions 697 Saving and accessing values for later 698 Exchanging information with AutoCAD 699 Getting Information to and from the User .701 Giving feedback to the user 701 Other functions to note ... 457 Organizing with subsets 459 Setting up a sheet set and subset for adding new sheets .460 Adding a new sheet 463 Opening a sheet 464 Removing, renaming, and renumbering a sheet 464 xxii AutoCAD & AutoCAD LT All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies Sheet set and sheet properties .465 Setting up callouts and label blocks 468 Adding resource drawings 472... out for when you use both AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT in the same office Book V: 3D Modeling Book V covers how to create, edit, view, and visualize 3D objects You get the basics of working in 3D, and see how to specify coordinates and adjust the coordinate system to make it easier for you to create and modify objects above the x,y plane This minibook also tells you how to navigate and view a 3D model in AutoCAD. .. Tolerances 238 xvi AutoCAD & AutoCAD LT All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies Chapter 3: Hatching Your Drawings 241 Adding Hatch Patterns and Fills .242 Adding hatch to a drawing 243 Hatching and tool palettes 245 Hatching and DesignCenter 245 Advanced settings for additional control 245 Working with Hatch Patterns and Solid Fills . editions of AutoCAD For Dummies and the three most recent editions of AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT Bible. AutoCAD & AutoCAD LT All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies. Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies. com, and related