AutoCAD 2005 For Dummies (2004)

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

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

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

	Acquisitions, Editorial, and	Production
	Media Development	Project Coordinator: Courtney MacIntyre
	Project Editor: Christine Berman
		Layout and Graphics: Amanda Carter,
	Acquisitions Editor: Terri Varveris
		Andrea Dahl, Lauren Goddard,
	Copy Editor: Christine Berman	Denny Hager, Michael Kruzil,
		Jacque Schneider, Melanee Wolven
	Technical Editor: David Byrnes
		Proofreaders: Laura Albert, Andy Hollandbeck,
	Editorial Manager: Carol Sheehan
		Carl Pierce, Brian H. Walls,
	Media Development Supervisor:	TECHBOOKS Production Services
	Richard Graves	Indexer: TECHBOOKS Production Services
	Editorial Assistant: Amanda Foxworth
	Cartoons: Rich Tennant
	(www.the5thwave.com)

Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies

Richard Swadley, Vice President and Executive Group Publisher

Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher

Mary C. Corder, Editorial Director

Publishing for Consumer Dummies

Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher

Joyce Pepple, Acquisitions Director

Composition Services

Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

Contents at a Glance
Introduction .................................................................	1
Part I: AutoCAD 101 ....................................................	7
Chapter 1: Introducing AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT 2005 ...............................................	9
Chapter 2: Le Tour de AutoCAD 2005 ............................................................................	17
Chapter 3: Setup for Success ..........................................................................................	41
Part II: Let There Be Lines...........................................	71
Chapter 4: Get Ready to Draw ........................................................................................	73
Chapter 5: Where to Draw the Line..............................................................................	101
Chapter 6: Edit for Credit ..............................................................................................	129
Chapter 7: A Zoom with a View ....................................................................................	167
Chapter 8: On a 3D Spree...............................................................................................	179
Part III: If Drawings Could Talk.................................	203
Chapter 9: Text with Character ....................................................................................	205
Chapter 10: Entering New Dimensions ........................................................................	229
Chapter 11: Down the Hatch .........................................................................................	255
Chapter 12: The Plot Thickens .....................................................................................	267
Part IV: Share and Share Alike ..................................	293
Chapter 13: Playing Blocks and Rasteroids ................................................................	295
Chapter 14: Sheet Sets without Regrets ......................................................................	321
Chapter 15: CAD Standards Rule ..................................................................................	337
Chapter 16: Drawing on the Internet............................................................................	347
Part V: The Part of Tens ............................................	367
Chapter 17: Ten Ways to Do No Harm .........................................................................	369
Chapter 18: Ten Ways to Swap Drawing Data with
Other People and Programs .......................................................................................	373

Index .......................................................................

383

Table of Contents
Introduction..................................................................	1
What’s Not in This Book ...................................................................................	1
Who Are — and Aren’t — You?........................................................................	2
How This Book Is Organized ............................................................................	2
Part I: AutoCAD 101 .................................................................................	3
Part II: Let There Be Lines ......................................................................	3
Part III: If Drawings Could Talk...............................................................	4
Part IV: Share and Share Alike................................................................	4
Part V: The Part of Tens..........................................................................	4
Icons Used in This Book ...................................................................................	5
A Few Conventions — Just in Case .................................................................	5
Part I: AutoCAD 101 ......................................................	7
Chapter 1: Introducing AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT 2005 . . . . . . . . . . . . .	.9
Why AutoCAD?.................................................................................................	10
The Importance of Being DWG ......................................................................	11
Seeing the LT ....................................................................................................	13
Staying Alive with 2005...................................................................................	14
Chapter 2 : Le Tour de AutoCAD 2005 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	17
AutoCAD Does Windows ................................................................................	18
AutoCAD’s Opening Screen Cuisine ..............................................................	19
Standard Windows fare.........................................................................	19
Looking for Mr. Status Bar ....................................................................	23
Take an order: The command line area ..............................................	26
Main course: The drawing area ...........................................................	30
A Palette-Cleanser ...........................................................................................	33
What Really Makes AutoCAD Cook? .............................................................	35
Sizzling system variables......................................................................	35
Delicious dialog boxes ..........................................................................	37
Fun with F1 .......................................................................................................	38
Chapter 3 : Setup for Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	41
An Appetizing Setup Strategy ........................................................................	42
Choosing your units ..............................................................................	44
Weighing your scales.............................................................................	45
Thinking about paper............................................................................	47
Defending your border..........................................................................	50
All system variables go .........................................................................	50

xii	AutoCAD 2005 For Dummies
	Getting Creative with Templates ...................................................................	51
	The Main Course: Model Space .....................................................................	54
	Setting your units ..................................................................................	54
	Telling your drawing its limits .............................................................	55
	Making the drawing area snap-py (and grid-dy)................................	57
	Setting linetype and dimension scales................................................	59
	Entering drawing properties ................................................................	61
	Plot Layouts for Any Palate............................................................................	62
	Creating a layout....................................................................................	63
	Copying and changing layouts.............................................................	66
	Lost in paper space ...............................................................................	67
	Cooking Up Terrific Templates ......................................................................	68
	Part II: Let There Be Lines ............................................	71
	Chapter 4: Get Ready to Draw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	.73
	Drawing and Editing with AutoCAD ..............................................................	73
	Managing Your Properties..............................................................................	74
	Putting it on a layer ...............................................................................	75
	Accumulating properties ......................................................................	77
	Creating new layers ...............................................................................	80
	Using AutoCAD DesignCenter........................................................................	85
	Named objects .......................................................................................	85
	Getting (Design) Centered ....................................................................	85
	Copying layers between drawings.......................................................	87
	Precise-liness Is Next to CAD-liness ..............................................................	88
	Keyboard capers: Coordinate entry....................................................	90
	Grab an object and make it snappy.....................................................	92
	Other precision practices.....................................................................	97
	Chapter 5: Where to Draw the Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	101
	Introducing the AutoCAD Drawing Commands .........................................	102
	The Straight and Narrow: Lines, Polylines, and Polygons .......................	104
	Toe the line...........................................................................................	104
	Connect the lines with polyline .........................................................	107
	Square off with rectangle....................................................................	112
	Choose your sides with polygon .......................................................	113
	(Throwing) Curves ........................................................................................	115
	Going full circle ....................................................................................	115
	Arc-y-ology............................................................................................	116
	Ellipses (S. Grant?) ..............................................................................	119
	Splines: The sketchy, sinuous curves ...............................................	121
	Donuts: The circles with a difference ...............................................	123
	Revision clouds on the horizon .........................................................	124
	Scoring Points................................................................................................	126

	Table of Contents	xiii
Chapter 6: Edit for Credit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	. . . . . . . . . . . . .129
Commanding and Selecting..........................................................................	129
Command-first editing ........................................................................	130
Selection-first editing ..........................................................................	130
Choosing an editing style ...................................................................	130
Grab It .............................................................................................................	131
One-by-one selection...........................................................................	132
Selection boxes left and right ............................................................	132
Perfecting Selecting.......................................................................................	134
Ready, Get Set, Edit! ......................................................................................	137
The Big Three: Move, CoPy, and Stretch ..........................................	138
More manipulations ............................................................................	147
Slicing and dicing.................................................................................	151
Get a Grip........................................................................................................	156
About grips...........................................................................................	156
A gripping example..............................................................................	157
Move it! .................................................................................................	160
Copy, or a kinder, gentler Move .........................................................	160
A warm-up Stretch...............................................................................	162
Chapter 7: A Zoom with a View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	. . . . . . . . . . . . .167
Zoom and Pan with Glass and Hand ...........................................................	167
Out of the frying pan . . . .....................................................................	169
Time to zoom .......................................................................................	170
A View by Any Other Name. . ......................................................................	171
Looking Around in Layout Land ..................................................................	173
Degenerating and Regenerating ..................................................................	176
Chapter 8: On a 3D Spree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	. . . . . . . . . . . . .179
Is 3D for Me?...................................................................................................	180
Getting Your 3D Bearings .............................................................................	184
Model space viewports left and right ...............................................	184
Seeing the world from new viewpoints.............................................	185
Dynamic viewpoints with 3DOrbit ....................................................	187
A Cartesian Orientation................................................................................	190
Coordinate systems: The WCS and UCS ...........................................	190
Specifying coordinates in 3D..............................................................	191
Drawing in 3D.................................................................................................	193
Drawing 3D lines and polylines..........................................................	193
Extruding from 2D to 3D .....................................................................	194
Meshing around with surface meshes ..............................................	196
A solid(s) foundation ..........................................................................	197
Editing in three dimensions ...............................................................	199
Ending with Rendering .................................................................................	200

xiv	AutoCAD 2005 For Dummies
	Part III: If Drawings Could Talk ..................................			203
	Chapter 9: Text with Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .			. .205
	Getting Ready to Write..................................................................................			206
	Simply stylish text ...............................................................................			206
	Taking your text to new heights ........................................................			209
	One line or two?...................................................................................			212
	Your text will be justified....................................................................			212
	Using the Same Old Line...............................................................................			213
	Saying More in Multiline Text ......................................................................			215
	Making it with mText...........................................................................			215
	New mText might in AutoCAD 2005 ..................................................			218
	Keeping tabs (and indents) on your mText .....................................			220
	Modifying mText ..................................................................................			222
	Setting the Text Table ...................................................................................			223
	Tables have style, too .........................................................................			223
	Creating and editing tables ................................................................			224
	Checking Out Your Spelling..........................................................................			227
	Chapter 10: Entering New Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .			. .229
	Discovering New Dimensions ......................................................................			231
	Anatomy of a dimension .....................................................................			231
	A field guide to dimensions................................................................			232
	Dimension associativity......................................................................			233
	Pulling out your dimension tools ......................................................			234
	Doing Dimensions with Style(s) ..................................................................			235
	Borrowing existing dimension styles ................................................			235
	Creating and managing dimension styles.........................................			237
	Adjusting style settings.......................................................................			239
	Drawing Dimensions .....................................................................................			242
	Lining up some linear dimensions.....................................................			243
	Drawing other kinds of dimensions ..................................................			246
	Trans-spatial dimensioning ................................................................			246
	Editing Dimensions		.......................................................................................	247
	Editing dimension ..............................................................geometry			247
	Editing dimension ........................................................................text			248
	Controlling and .............................editing dimension associativity			249
	Pointy-Headed Leaders.................................................................................			250
	Chapter 11: Down the Hatch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .			255
	Hatch . . .	Hatch . . . ........................................................................	Hatchoo	256
	Pushing the Boundary ...............................................................(of) Hatch			258
	Hatch from scratch..............................................................................			259
	Getting it right: ..............................................Hatch angle and scale			261
	Do fence me in: .....................................Defining hatch boundaries			262

		Table of Contents	xv
Hatching that knows its place............................................................		264
Have palette, will hatch ......................................................................		264
Editing Hatch Objects ...................................................................................		264
Chapter 12: The Plot Thickens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .		. . . . . . . . . . . . .267
You Say Printing, I Say Plotting....................................................................		267
Get with the system.............................................................................		268
Configure it out ....................................................................................		269
A Simple Plot..................................................................................................		270
Plotting success in 16 steps ...............................................................		271
Preview one, two .................................................................................		274
Instead of fit, scale it ...........................................................................		275
Plotting the Layout of the Land...................................................................		276
About paper space layouts and plotting ..........................................		276
The path to paper space layout plotting success		...........................277
Plotting Lineweights and Colors .................................................................		279
Plotting with style................................................................................		279
Plotting through thick and thin .........................................................		283
Plotting in color ...................................................................................		285
It’s a (Page) Setup!.........................................................................................		287
Continuing the Plot Dialog ...........................................................................		288
Troubles with Plotting ..................................................................................		291
Part IV: Share and Share Alike....................................		293
Chapter 13: Playing Blocks and Rasteroids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .		295
Rocking with Blocks......................................................................................		296
Creating block definitions ..................................................................		298
Inserting blocks ...................................................................................		301
Attributes: Fill-in-the-blank blocks ....................................................		304
Exploding blocks .................................................................................		308
Going External ...............................................................................................		309
Becoming attached to your xrefs ......................................................		311
Layer-palooza.......................................................................................		312
Creating and editing an external reference file................................		313
Forging an xref path ............................................................................		313
Managing xrefs .....................................................................................		314
Blocks, Xrefs, and Drawing Organization ...................................................		316
Mastering the Raster.....................................................................................		316
Attaching an image..............................................................................		318
Managing images .................................................................................		319
Chapter 14: Sheet Sets without Regrets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .		321

Taming Sheet Sets .........................................................................................	322
Using an Existing Sheet Set ..........................................................................	323

xvi	AutoCAD 2005 For Dummies
	The Sheet Set Setup ......................................................................................	325
	Getting Your Sheets Together ......................................................................	326
	Adding existing sheets to a set ..........................................................	327
	Sheet subsets .......................................................................................	328
	Creating new sheets for a set .............................................................	329
	Assembling sheet views from resource drawings ...........................	330
	Making an Automatic Sheet List ..................................................................	333
	Chapter 15: CAD Standards Rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	. .337
	Why CAD Standards? ....................................................................................	338
	Which CAD Standards? .................................................................................	339
	What Needs to Be Standardized? ................................................................	341
	Plotting..................................................................................................	341
	Layers....................................................................................................	342
	Other stuff ............................................................................................	343
	Cool Standards Tools ....................................................................................	344
	Chapter 16: Drawing on the Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	. .347
	The Internet and AutoCAD: An Overview ..................................................	348
	Sending Strategies .........................................................................................	350
	Send it with ETRANSMIT ....................................................................	351
	Rapid eTransmit ..................................................................................	352
	Transmitting multiple drawings ........................................................	354
	FTP for you and me .............................................................................	355
	Bad reception? .....................................................................................	355
	Help from the Reference Manager.....................................................	356
	Drawing Web Format — Not Just for the Web ...........................................	358
	All about DWF ......................................................................................	358
	ePlot, not replot ...................................................................................	359
	Making DWFs with ePlot .....................................................................	360
	Making DWFs (or Plots) with PUBLISH .............................................	361
	Hand-y objects .....................................................................................	363
	Autodesk Express Viewer ...................................................................	363
	The Drawing Protection Racket...................................................................	364
	Part V: The Part of Tens ..............................................	367
	Chapter 17: Ten Ways to Do No Harm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	.369
	Be Precise .......................................................................................................	369
	Control Properties by Layer ........................................................................	369
	Know Your Drawing Scale Factor ................................................................	370
	Know Your Space...........................................................................................	370
	If Someone (Sheet) Set It, Don’t Forget It ...................................................	370
	Explode with Care .........................................................................................	370

	Table of Contents xvii
Don’t Cram Your Geometry..........................................................................	371
Freeze Instead of Erase.................................................................................	371
Use CAD Standards .......................................................................................	371
Save and Back Up Drawings Regularly .......................................................	372
Chapter 18: Ten Ways to Swap Drawing Data
with Other People and Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	. . . . . . . . . . . .373
DWG ................................................................................................................	374
DXF ..................................................................................................................	376
DWF .................................................................................................................	376
PDF ..................................................................................................................	376
WMF ................................................................................................................	377
BMP, JPEG, TIFF, and Other Raster Formats ..............................................	377
Windows Clipboard.......................................................................................	379
OLE..................................................................................................................	379
Screen Capture ..............................................................................................	380
TXT and RTF ..................................................................................................	381
Index........................................................................	383