CAD Drawing Techniques

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CAD Drawing: Tips and Shortcuts. AutoCAD offers many commands, but only about 20% of them are used most frequently during drawing. When entering commands using the keyboard, some common commands are quite long, such as BHATCH (filling) and EXPLODE (decomposing), which requires many keystrokes to enter and thus slows down the drawing speed. Although AutoCAD offers both menu and toolbar methods for input, to increase drawing speed, it is necessary to master the quick command-input methods provided by AutoCAD. While working on AutoCAD design, training, and teaching research, the author has gained some experience in the use and management of shortcut commands; these experiences are summarized here for reference when using AutoCAD 2000. I. Overview: So-called shortcut commands are shortcuts defined by AutoCAD to increase drawing speed; they use one or a few simple letters to represent common commands, allowing us to avoid having to memorize numerous long command names, nor do we need to search through menus and toolbars to execute a command. All defined shortcut commands are stored in the ACAD.PGP file located in the SUPPORT subdirectory of the AutoCAD installation directory; we can define our own frequently used shortcut commands by modifying the contents of this file. Every time we create or open an AutoCAD drawing file, CAD automatically searches for the SUPPORT directory in the installation path, finds the ACAD.PGP file, and loads it. When AutoCAD is running, we can use the shortcut commands defined in the ACAD.PGP file through the command line to perform an operation; for example, if we want to draw a straight line, we simply need to enter the letter “L” in the command line. II. Naming rules for shortcut commands 1. Shortcut commands are usually the first or first two letters of the command’s English name; in some cases, it’s the first three letters. For example, the shortcut command for Line is “L”” ； The shortcut command for Copy is “CO”” ； The shortcut key for Linear Scale (LTScale) is “LTS”. During use, try using the first letter of the command; if that doesn’t work, use the first two letters, or at most the first three. In other words, AutoCAD shortcut commands generally consist of no more than three letters. If even the first three letters of a command don’t work, you will have to enter the full command. 2. Another type of shortcut commands usually consists of “Ctrl key + a letter,” or they are defined using function keys F1~F8. For example, Ctrl + “N”, Ctrl + “O”, Ctrl + “S”, and Ctrl + “P” correspond to creating a new file, opening a file, saving a file, and printing a file respectively ； F3 represents “object snap”. 3. If the first letter of some commands is the same, then for the commonly used commands the first letter is used, while for the other commands the first two or three letters can be used to represent them. For example, “R” stands for Redraw, while “RA” stands for Redrawall ； For example, “L” stands for Line, “LT” stands for LineType, and “LTS” stands for LTScale. 4. There are a few exceptions that we need to remember; for example, “Modify Text” (DDEDIT) is not “DD”, but rather “ED”” ； Also, “AA” stands for Area, “T” stands for Mtext, and “X” stands for Explode. III. Definition of shortcut commands As has been mentioned earlier, all the shortcut commands defined in AutoCAD are saved in the ACAD.PGP file. ACAD.PGP is a plain-text file that can be edited using an ASCII text editor such as EDIT in DOS, or directly with Notepad that is included in WINDOWS. Users can add shortcuts for some Auto CAD commands to the file on their own. Typically, shortcut commands use one or two easy-to-remember letters to replace the full name of the command. The format for defining shortcut commands is as follows: shortcut command name, * full name of the command. For example, CO, * COPY; that is, after entering the shortcut command, a comma is entered followed by the full name of the command that it replaces. Commands in AutoCAD must be prefixed with an asterisk. 【References】 Chen Tong et al., *AutoCAD 2000 Chinese Edition: Introduction and Improvement*, Tsinghua University Press, published in July 2000. Appendix: Common shortcut commands (I) Letter-based commands: 1. Object properties: ADC, *ADCENTER* (Design Center, “Ctrl+2”) CH, MO *PROPERTIES* (Modify properties, “Ctrl+1”) MA, *MATCHPROP* (Property matching) ST, *STYLE* (Text style) COL, *COLOR* (Set color) LA, *LAYER* (Layer operations) LT, *LINETYPE* (Line type) LTS, *LTSCALE* (Line scale) LW, *LWEIGHT* (Line width) UN, *UNITS* (Drawing units) ATT, *ATTDEF* (Attribute definition) ATE, *ATTEDIT* (Edit attributes) BO, *BOUNDARY* (Create boundaries, including closed polylines and regions) AL, *ALIGN* (Align) Author: linfan84, 2006-3-14 16:32. Reply to this post -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 CAD drawing tips: E*T, *QUIT* (Exit) EXP, *EXPORT* (Export to other file formats) IMP, *IMPORT* (Import files) OP, PR *OPTIONS* (Customize CAD settings) PRINT, *PLOT* (Print) PU, *PURGE* (Clear junk) R, *REDRAW* (Regenerate) REN, *RENAME* (Rename) SN, *SNAP* (Snap to grid) DS, *DSETTINGS* (Set polar tracking) OS, *OSNAP* (Set snap mode) PRE, *PREVIEW* (Print preview) TO, *TOOLBAR* (Toolbars) V, *VIEW* (Named views) AA, *AREA* (Area) DI, *DIST* (Distance) LI, *LIST* (Display graphic data information) 2. Drawing commands: PO, *POINT* (Point) L, *LINE* (Line) XL, *XLINE* (Ray) PL, *PLINE* (Polyline) ML, *MLINE* (Multi-line) SPL, *SPLINE* (Spline) POL, *POLYGON* (Regular polygon) REC, *RECTANGLE* (Rectangle) C, *CIRCLE* (Circle) A, *ARC* (Arc) DO, *DONUT* (Donut) EL, *ELLIPSE* (Ellipse) REG, *REGION* (Region) MT, *MTEXT* (Multiline text) T, *MTEXT* (Multiline text) B, *BLOCK* (Define block) I, *INSERT* (Insert block) W, *WBLOCK* (Define block file) DIV, *DIVIDE* (Divide) H, *BHATCH* (Fill) 3. Modification commands: CO, *COPY* (Copy) MI, *MIRROR* (Mirror) AR, *ARRAY* (Array) O, *OFFSET* (Offset) RO, *ROTATE* (Rotate) M, *MOVE* (Move) E, DEL key *ERASE* (Delete) X, *EXPLODE* (Explode) TR, *TRIM* (Trim) EX, *EXTEND* (Extend) S, *STRETCH* (Stretch) LEN, *LENGTHEN* (Lengthen line) SC, *SCALE* (Scale) BR, *BREAK* (Break) CHA, *CHAMFER* (Chamfer) F, *FILLET* (Fillet) PE, *PEDIT* (Edit polyline) ED, *DDEDIT* (Edit text) 4. Window scaling: P, *PAN* (Pan) Z + Space + Space, *Real-time scaling* Z, *Zoom in* Z+P, *Return to previous view* Z+E, *Show full view* 5. Dimensioning: DLI, *DIMLINEAR* (Linear dimension) DAL, *DIMALIGNED* (Aligned dimension) DRA, *DIMRADIUS* (Radius dimension) DDI, *DIMDIAMETER* (Diameter dimension) DAN, *DIMANGULAR* (Angle dimension) DCE, *DIMCENTER* (Center dimension) DOR, *DIMORDINATE* (Point dimension) TOL, *TOLERANCE* (Dimension tolerance) LE, *QLEADER* (Quick leader) DBA, *DIMBASELINE* (Baseline dimension) DCO, *DIMCONTINUE* (Continued dimension) D, *DIMSTYLE* (Dimension style) DED, *DIMEDIT* (Edit dimension) DOV, *DIMOVERRIDE* (Override dimension system variables) (II) Common CTRL shortcuts: [CTRL] + 1 *PROPERTIES* (Modify properties) [CTRL] + 2 *ADCENTER* (Design Center) [CTRL] + O *OPEN* (Open file) [CTRL] + N, M *NEW* (Create new file) [CTRL] + P *PRINT* (Print file) [CTRL] + S *SAVE* (Save file) [CTRL] + Z *UNDO* (Undo) [CTRL] + X *CUTCLIP* (Cut clip) [CTRL] + C *COPYCLIP* (Copy clip) [CTRL] + V *PASTECLIP* (Paste clip) [CTRL] + B *SNAP* (Snap to grid) [CTRL] + F *OSNAP* (Object snap) [CTRL] + G *GRID* (Grid) [CTRL] + L *ORTHO* (Ortho mode) [CTRL] + W *Object tracking* [CTRL] + U *Polar tracking* (III) Common function keys: [F1] *HELP* (Help) [F2] *Text window* [F3] *OSNAP* (Object snap) [F7] *GRIP* (Grid grip) [F8] *ORTHO* (Ortho mode)