Up and Running with AutoCAD 2018: 2D Drafting and Design

By Elliot J. Gindis and Robert C. Kaebisch

Up and Running with AutoCAD 2018: 2D Drafting and Design provides a combination of step-by-step instruction, examples and insightful explanations on the topic. It emphasizes core concepts and practical application of AutoCAD in engineering, architecture and design. Equally useful in instructor-led classroom training, self-study, or as a professional reference, the book is written by a long-time AutoCAD professional and instructor who presents topics that work in the industry and classroom. The book has been pared down to focus on 2D drafting and design, making it appropriate for a one-semester course.

• Strips away complexities and reduces AutoCAD to basic, easy-to-understand concepts
• Teaches the essentials of operating AutoCAD first, immediately building student confidence
• Documents all basic commands, giving the student what they need to type in and how AutoCAD responds
• Includes new exercises and projects for the AutoCAD 2018 version
• Offers online bonus content on AutoCAD 3D basics

• Language: English
• Publisher: Academic Press
• Release date: Aug 11, 2017
• ISBN: 9780128141113

Elliot J. Gindis

Elliot Gindis is the founding author of the Up and Running with AutoCAD series of textbooks. He is a former AutoCAD drafter and designer who got his start in New York City in 1996 and has logged in over 25,000 hours of screen time with a wide variety of architecture and engineering companies. From 1999 to 2008 he was on staff with the Pratt Institute of Design and as visiting instructor at the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), teaching beginner, intermediate, and advanced (3D) AutoCAD classes. He was also the president of Vertical Technologies Consulting and Design, an AutoCAD training firm, and has advised, consulted, or assisted more than 60 companies nationwide in using and optimizing AutoCAD. Elliot was part of the AutoDesk Developers Network and was a Certified Technical Trainer. He published the first edition of the Up and Running textbook with Elsevier in 2010, and has supported each subsequent edition until 2020, when Robert Kaebisch took over full-time. Elliot currently resides in the Los Angeles area, and is an engineer in the defense industry.

Book preview

Level 1

Chapters 1–10

Outline

Level 1. Chapters 1–10

Chapter 1 AutoCAD Fundamentals—Part I

Chapter 2 AutoCAD Fundamentals—Part II

Spotlight On: Architecture

Spotlight On: Mechanical Engineering

Spotlight On: Interior Design

Spotlight On: Electrical Engineering

Level 1 Answers to Review Questions

Level 1. Chapters 1–10

Level 1 is the very beginning of your studies. No prior knowledge of AutoCAD is assumed, only basic familiarity with computers and some technical aptitude. You are also at an advantage if you have hand drafted before, as many AutoCAD techniques flow from the old paper and pencil days, a fact alluded to later in the chapters.

We begin Chapter 1, AutoCAD Fundamentals—Part I by outlining the basic commands under Create Objects and Modify Objects followed by an introduction to the AutoCAD environment. We then introduce basic accuracy tools of Ortho and OSNAP.

Chapter 2, AutoCAD Fundamentals—Part II continues the basics by adding units and various data entry tools. These first two chapters are critically important, as success here ensures you will understand the rest and be able to function in the AutoCAD environment.

Chapter 3, Layers, Colors, Linetypes, and Properties continues on to layers, then each succeeding chapter continues to deal with one or more major topics per chapter: text and mtext in Chapter 4, Text, Mtext, Editing, and Style hatching in Chapter 5, Hatch Patterns and dimensioning in Chapter 6, Dimensions. In these six chapters, you are asked to not only practice what you learned but apply the knowledge to a basic architectural floor plan. Chapter 7, Blocks, Wblocks, Dynamic Blocks, Groups, and Purge introduces blocks and wblocks and Chapter 8, Polar, Rectangular, and Path Arrays arrays. At this point, you are asked to draw another project, this time a mechanical device. Level 1 concludes with basic printing and output in Chapter 9, Basic Printing and Output and finally advanced printing and output (Paper Space) in Chapter 10, Advanced Output—Paper Space.

Be sure to dedicate as much time as possible to practicing what you learn; there really is no substitute.

Chapter 1

AutoCAD Fundamentals—Part I

Abstract

This chapter introduces the AutoCAD environment and the various tools present on the screen. It proceeds to describe how to interact with AutoCAD via typing, cascading menus, toolbars, and the Ribbon. The basic commands are then outlined in detail. Covered are commands in the Create Objects category (line, circle, arc, and rectangle), the Edit/Modify Objects category (erase, move, copy, rotate, scale, trim, extend, offset, mirror, and fillet), and the View Objects category (zoom, pan, and regen). The chapter covers selection methods (Window and Crossing) and concludes with drawing accuracy tools, such as Ortho (F8) and the OSNAPs (Endpoint, Midpoint, Center, Quadrant, Intersection, and Perpendicular), along with the OSNAP (F3) dialog box. Throughout the chapter, tips are given to ease the learning process and speed up the work.

Keywords

AutoCAD drawing environment; drawing area; command line; cascading menus; toolbars; Ribbon; line; circle; arc; rectangle; erase; move; copy; rotate; scale; trim; extend; offset; mirror; fillet; zoom; pan; regen; selection methods; Crossing; Window; Ortho (F8); OSNAP (F3); ENDpoint; MIDpoint; CENter; QUADrant; INTersection; PERPendicular

Learning Objectives

In this chapter, we introduce AutoCAD and discuss the following:

• introduction and the basic commands

• the Create Objects commands

• the Edit/Modify Objects commands

• the View Objects commands

• the AutoCAD environment

• interacting with AutoCAD

• practicing the Create Objects commands

• practicing the Edit/Modify Objects commands

• selection methods—Window, Crossing, and Lasso

• accuracy in drafting—Ortho (F8)

• accuracy in drafting—OSNAPs (F3)

By the end of this chapter, you will learn the essential basics of creating, modifying, and viewing objects; the AutoCAD environment; and accuracy in the form of straight lines and precise alignment of geometric objects via OSNAP points.

Estimated time for completion of this chapter: 3 hours.

1.1 Introduction and Basic Commands

AutoCAD 2018 is a very complex program. If you are taking a class or reading this textbook, this is something you probably already know. The commands available to you, along with their submenus and various options, number in the thousands. So, how do you get a handle on them and begin using the software? Well, you have to realize two important facts.

First, you must understand that, on a typical workday, 95% of your AutoCAD drafting time is spent using only 5% of the available commands, over and over again. So getting started is easy; you need to learn only a handful of key commands; and as you progress and build confidence, you can add depth to your knowledge by learning new ones.

Second, you must understand that even the most complex drawing is essentially made up of only a few basic fundamental objects that appear over and over again in various combinations on the screen. Once you learn how to create and edit them, you can draw surprisingly quickly. Understanding these facts is the key to learning the software. We are going to strip away the perceived complexities of AutoCAD and reduce it to its essential core. Let us go ahead now and develop the list of the basic commands.

For a moment, view AutoCAD as a fancy electronic hand-drafting board. In the old days of pencil, eraser, and T-square, what was the simplest thing that you could draft on a blank sheet of paper? That of course is a line. Let us make a list with the following header, Create Objects, and below it add line.

So, what other geometric objects can we draw? Think of basic building blocks, those that cannot be broken down any further. A circle qualifies and so does an arc. Because it is so common and useful, throw in a rectangle as well (even though you should note that it is a compound object, made up of four lines). Here is the final list of fundamental objects that we have just come up with:

Create Objects

• line

• circle

• arc

• rectangle

As surprising as it may sound, these four objects, in large quantities, make up the vast majority of a typical design, so already you have the basic tools. We will create these on the AutoCAD screen in a bit. For now, let us keep going and get the rest of the list down.

Now that you have the objects, what can you do with them? You can erase them, which is probably the most obvious. You can also move them around your screen and, in a similar manner, copy them. The objects can rotate, and you can also scale them up or down in size. With lines, if they are too long, you can trim them, and if they are too short, you can extend them. Offset is a sort of precise copy and one of the most useful commands in AutoCAD. Mirror is used, as the name implies, to make a mirror-image copy of an object. Finally, fillet is used to put a curve on two intersecting lines, among other things. We will learn a few more useful commands a bit later, but for now, under the header Edit/Modify Objects, list the commands just mentioned:

Edit/Modify Objects

• erase

• move

• copy

• rotate

• scale

• trim

• extend

• offset

• mirror

• fillet

Once again, as surprising as it may sound, this short list represents almost the entire set of basic Edit/Modify Objects commands you need once you begin to draft. Start memorizing them.

To finish up, let us add several View Objects commands. With AutoCAD, unlike paper hand drafting, you do not always see your whole design in front of you. You may need to zoom in for a closeup or out to see the big picture. You may also need to pan around to view other parts of the drawing. With a wheeled mouse, virtually universal on computers these days, it is very easy to do both, as we soon see. To this list we add the regen command. It stands for regenerate, and it simply refreshes your screen, something you may find useful later. So here is the list for View Objects:

View Objects

• zoom

• pan

• regen

So, this is it for now, just 17 commands making up the basic set. Here is what you need to do:

1. As mentioned before, memorize them so you always know what you have available.

2. Understand the basic idea, if not the details, behind each command. This should be easy to do, because (except for maybe offset and fillet) the commands are intuitive and not cryptic in any way; erase means erase, whether it is AutoCAD, a marker on a whiteboard, or a pencil line.

We are ready now to start AutoCAD, discuss how to interact with the program, and try out all the commands.

1.2 The AutoCAD Environment

It is assumed that your computer, whether at home, school, work, or training class, is loaded with AutoCAD 2018. It is also assumed that AutoCAD starts up just fine (via the AutoCAD icon or Start menu) and everything is configured right. If not, ask your instructor, as there are just too many things that can go wrong on a particular PC or laptop, and it is beyond the scope of this book to cover these situations.

If all is well, start up AutoCAD. You should see the Start tab welcome screen depicted in Fig. 1.1. This is a change from older versions of AutoCAD, which defaulted to a blank drawing area when first opened. We do not spend too much time here, but note that on the bottom you have the option to switch to another screen called Learn. It contains a What’s New section, some Getting Started Videos, and a collection of Learning Tips and Online Resources. Meanwhile the Create screen has some options to open drawings via Get Started, some Recent Documents, and Notifications. Take a quick tour of everything if you wish, and when you are ready to open a new blank file, press the sheet of paper icon at the very top left of the screen; the universal computer symbol for a new file. A Select template dialog box opens up, already set to open an acad.dwt file (Fig. 1.2). Press the Open button at the lower right, and a blank file opens (Fig. 1.3).

Figure 1.1 AutoCAD 2018—Start tab.

Figure 1.2 Select template—acad.dwt.

Figure 1.3 AutoCAD 2018 (running on Windows 7).

This is your basic out-of-the-box AutoCAD environment for the Drafting & Annotation workspace. From both the learning and teaching points of view, this screen layout (and the layout of the last few releases) is an improvement over older versions of AutoCAD, and Autodesk has done an admirable job in continuing to keep things clean and (relatively) simple.

With some previous versions of AutoCAD, a new palette, called Design Feed, (and sometimes other palettes) also appeared during start up. You may or may not see them with this release, but if you do, close any pop-up palette via the X at the upper left of the palette; we do not need any of them anytime soon and they just clutter up the screen.

AutoCAD went through a major facelift in Release 2009, with some minor additions incorporated into every release ever since. If you caught a glimpse of earlier versions, you may have noticed toolbars present. They are still around, but what we have had for some time now, dominating the upper part of the screen, is called the Ribbon. After nine years, it is a well-established way of interacting with AutoCAD, and we discuss it in detail soon. Other screen layouts or workspaces are available to you; however, they are related to 3D and we discuss them in the 3D downloadable online content. The Drafting & Annotation workspace you are in now is all you need to get started.

For clarity and ease of learning, we need to change the look of a few items on the screen. First, we lighten everything. By default AutoCAD 2018 opens up with a dark theme (it is easier on the eyes). We switch to the light theme, and also change the work area color to white. This not only saves ink but also makes it a lot easier for you to see and understand the graphics on the printed page. We then turn the command line from its single-line configuration to a multiline one, so you can follow command sequences more easily. Finally, we add the cascading menu bar back in and make a few other minor tweaks to the drawing and construction aids at the bottom right, such as turning off the Grid (which you can do right away by pressing F7). You need not do all this; a lot of the steps are based on personal taste of how you want AutoCAD to look. However, it is necessary for the textbook and will make learning AutoCAD a bit easier for you initially as well. You may want to go dark later down the road however.

Let us now take a tour of the features you see on the screen. Along the way you will see descriptions of how to incorporate the previously mentioned changes. Your screen will then look like Fig. 1.4. Study all the screen elements carefully, so you know exactly what you are looking at as we progress further.

• Drawing Area: The drawing area takes up most of the screen and is colored a very dark gray in the default version of the environment. This is where you work and your design appears. Some users change it to all-black to further ease eyestrain, as less light radiates toward you. In this textbook, however (as in most textbooks), the color always is white to conserve ink and for clarity on a printed page. If you wish to change the color of the drawing area, you need to right-click into Options…, choose the Display tab, then Colors…. Finally, change the color from the drop-down menu on the right. We cover all this in more detail in Chapter 14, Options, Shortcuts, CUI, DesignCenter, and Express Tools, so you should ask your instructor for assistance in the meantime, if necessary.

• Drawing Tabs: One new change that was added back in the 2015 release is that the drawing area now has tabs, visible at the upper left, that allow you to cycle through multiple drawings. As described earlier, AutoCAD 2018 defaults to the Start tab. You can close it while you are working on another drawing, but it will return if no other drawings are present.

• Command Line(s): Right below the drawing area are the command lines or, by default, just one floating line. It can be turned off and on via Ctrl+9. This is where the commands may be entered and also where AutoCAD tells you what it needs to continue. Always keep an eye on what appears here, as this is one of the main ways that AutoCAD communicates with you. Although we discuss the heads-up on-screen interaction method in Chapter 2, AutoCAD Fundamentals—Part II, the command line remains very relevant and often used. It is colored gray and white by default but can be changed (in a manner similar to the drawing area) to all white if desired. We leave the color as default but dock it at the bottom and stretch it upward to include three lines for clarity. These are all minor details, so you can leave your command line completely as is if you wish.

• UCS Icon: This is a basic X–Y–Z (Z is not visible) grid symbol. It will be important later in advanced studies and 3D. It can be turned off via an icon on the Ribbon’s View tab, but generally it is kept where it is by most users. The significance of this icon is great, and we study it in detail later on. For now, just observe that the Y axis is up and the X axis is across.

• Paper Space/Model Space Tabs: These Model/Layout1/Layout2 tabs, similar to those used in Microsoft’s Excel, indicate which drawing space you are in and are important in Chapter 10, Advanced Output—Paper Space, when we cover Paper Space. Although you can click on them to see what happens, be sure to return to the Model tab to continue further.

• Toolbar(s): Toolbars contain icons that can be pressed to activate commands. They are an alternative to typing and the Ribbon, and most commands can be accessed this way. AutoCAD 2018 has over 50 of them. You may not have a toolbar present on your screen at the moment. If that is the case, do not worry, we activate a few toolbars shortly. Toolbars are generally falling out of favor among some users, who prefer the Ribbon, but which approach to use remains a personal choice. We always try to have the relevant toolbars open throughout the book for learning purposes.

• Crosshairs: Crosshairs are simply the mouse cursor and move around along with the movements of your mouse. They can be full size and span the entire screen or a small (flyspeck) size. You can change the size of the crosshairs if you wish, and full screen is recommended in some cases. For now, we leave it as is. The crosshairs have been empowered with a new intelligence a few releases ago. They now show, via a small icon, what you are doing while executing certain commands.

• Drawing and Construction Aids: These various settings assist you in drafting and modeling, and we introduce them as necessary. They were also redesigned some time ago. If you have seen earlier versions, the symbols were also present as written words, not just icons, but you no longer have this, they are all icons now. More important, however, some of them now contain selectable menus (look for the little black upside-down triangles), where you can set or choose even more options. This was one of the more significant interface changes from AutoCAD 2014 to 2015, a few years back, and gives you more power and convenience at your fingertips. The full menu of what is available can be seen by clicking the tab with the three short horizontal lines (Customization option) all the way on the right of the construction aids. If an option is checked, the corresponding button is visible in the horizontal menu. For all of the drawing aids, remember, if they are gray, they are off; if they are blue, they are on. Be sure to turn all them to off for now. We activate them as needed throughout the chapters.

• Ribbon: This new method cannot really be called new anymore, but it is certainly the most recent of the input approaches and is somewhat similar to the approach used in Microsoft Office software. It comprises a large panel that stretches across the screen and is populated with context-sensitive tabs. Each tab, in turn, contains many panels. The Ribbon can be turned off and on at will via the cascading menu’s Tools→Palettes→Ribbon. We have more to say about the Ribbon in the next section.

• Cascading Drop-Down Menus: This is another way to access commands in AutoCAD. These menus, so named because they drop out like a waterfall, may be hidden initially, but you can easily make them visible via the down arrow at the very top left of the screen, just to the right of the Undo and Redo arrows. A lengthy menu appears. Select Show Menu Bar toward the bottom and the cascading menus appear as a band across the top of the screen, above the Ribbon. You should keep these menus in their spot from now on; they are referred to often. Why Autodesk designed them to be hidden by default is a mystery.

Figure 1.4 AutoCAD 2018 screen elements.

Review this bulleted list carefully; it contains a lot of useful get to know AutoCAD information. Once again, you do not have to change your environment exactly as suggested, but be sure to understand how to do it if necessary.

1.3 Interacting With AutoCAD

OK, so you have the basic commands in hand and ideally a good understanding of what you are looking at on the AutoCAD screen. We are ready to try out the basic commands and eventually draft something. So, how do we interact with AutoCAD and tell it what we want drawn? Four primary ways (Methods 1–4) follow, roughly in the order they appeared over the years. There are also two outdated methods, called the tablet and the screen side menu (dating back to the very early days of AutoCAD), but we do not cover them.

Method 1. Type in the commands on the command line (AutoCAD v1.0–current).

Method 2. Select the commands from the drop-down cascading menus (AutoCAD v1.0–current).

Method 3. Use toolbar icons to activate the commands (AutoCAD 12/13–current).

Method 4. Use the Ribbon tabs, icons, and menus (AutoCAD 2009–current).

Details of each method, including the pros and cons, follow. Most commands are presented in all four primary ways, and you can experiment with each method to determine what you prefer. Eventually, you will settle on one particular way of interacting with AutoCAD or a hybrid of several.

Method 1. Type in the Commands on the Command Line

This was the original method of interacting with AutoCAD and, to this day, remains the most foolproof way to enter a command: good old-fashioned typing. AutoCAD is unique among leading CAD software in that it has retained this method while almost everyone else moved to graphic icons, toolbars, and Ribbons. If you hate typing, this will probably not be your preferred choice.

However, do not discount keyboard entry entirely; AutoCAD has kept it for a reason. When the commands are abbreviated to one or two letters (Line=L, Arc=A, etc.), input can be incredibly fast. Just watch a professional typist for proof of the speed with which one can enter data via a keyboard. Other advantages to typing are that you no longer have toolbars or a Ribbon cluttering up precious screen space (there is never enough of it), and you no longer have to take your eyes off the design to find an icon; instead, the command is literally at your fingertips. The disadvantage is of course that you have to type.

To use this method, simply type in the desired command (spelling counts!) at the command line, as seen in Fig. 1.5, and press Enter. The sequence initiates and you can proceed. A number of shortcuts are built into AutoCAD (try using just the first letter or two of a command), and we learn how to make our own shortcuts in advanced chapters. This method is still preferred by many legacy users—a kind way to say they have been using AutoCAD forever. Note that AutoCAD has an AutoComplete (as well as an AutoCorrect) feature on the command line, which calls up a possible list of commands based on just the first letter or two. This can be useful as you start out your learning the software but can also be turned off via right-clicking on the command line, choosing Input Settings, then checking off what you want or do not want.

Figure 1.5 AutoCAD 2018 command line (CIRCLE typed in).

Method 2. Select the Commands From the Drop-down Cascading Menus

This method has also been around since the beginning. It presents a way to access virtually every AutoCAD command, and indeed many students start out by checking out every one of them as a crash course on what is available—a fun but not very effective way of learning AutoCAD.

Go ahead and examine the cascading menus; these are similar in basic arrangement to other software, and you should be able to navigate through them easily. We refer to them on occasion in the following format: Menu→Command→Subcommand. So, for the sequence shown in Fig. 1.6, you would read Draw→Circle→3 Points.

Figure 1.6 Cascading drop-down menus for Draw→Circle→3 Points.

Note that, in earlier versions of AutoCAD, the cascading menu commands featured underlined letters (or numbers). These were hot keys that you would have pressed to choose that command option while running through the menus. The visible underlining was discontinued in AutoCAD 2015, as part of an overall trend to move away from keyboard entry, but these hot keys still work—if you know which letters or numbers to press—and certainly expect to see plenty of very noticeable underlining in all earlier versions of AutoCAD. This book has kept some of the underlined hotkeys visible in the command matrices (e.g., Line, Circle) as an example.

Method 3. Use Toolbar Icons to Activate the Commands

This method has been around since AutoCAD switched from DOS to Windows in the mid-1990s and was a favorite of a whole generation of users. Toolbars contain sets of icons (see Fig. 1.7 for an example), organized by categories (Draw toolbar, Modify toolbar, etc.). You press the icon you want, and a command is initiated. One disadvantage to toolbars, and the reason the Ribbon was developed, is that they take up a lot of space and, arguably, are not the most effective way of organizing commands on the screen.

Figure 1.7 AutoCAD 2018 Draw toolbar.

You can access all the toolbars at any time by simply selecting Tools→Toolbars→AutoCAD from the cascading menus. When you do that, a menu appears (Fig. 1.8), and you can simply check off the ones you want or do not want. You also can access the same menu by right-clicking on any of the toolbars themselves. Once you have a few up, you typically just dock them on top or off to the side. It is highly encouraged to bring up the Standard, Draw, and Modify toolbars for learning purposes. We do not require any other ones for now but will just bring them up as the need arises. Starting with Fig. 1.12, you will see those three toolbars docked neatly at the top of the drawing area.

Figure 1.8 Toolbars menu.

Method 4. Use the Ribbon Tabs, Icons, and Menus

This is the most recently introduced method of interacting with AutoCAD and follows a new trend in software user interface design, such as that used by Microsoft and its Office 2007, 2010, and 2013 (seen in Fig. 1.9 with Word). Notice how toolbars have been displaced by tabbed categories (Home, Insert, Page Layout, etc.), where information is grouped together by a common theme. So it goes with the new AutoCAD. The Ribbon was introduced with AutoCAD 2009, and it is here to stay. It is shown again by itself in Fig. 1.10.

Figure 1.9 MS Word® Ribbon.

Figure 1.10 AutoCAD 2018 Ribbon.

Notice what we have here. A collection of tabs, indicating a subject category, is found at the top (Home, Insert, Annotate, etc.), and each tab reveals an extensive set of tools (Draw, Modify, Annotation, etc.). At the bottom of the Ribbon, additional options can be found by using the drop arrows. In this manner, the toolbars have been rearranged in what is, in principle, a more logical and space-saving manner.

Additionally, tool tips appear if you place your mouse over any particular tool for more than a second. Another second yields an even more detailed tool tip. In Fig. 1.11, you see the Home tab selected, followed by additional options via the drop arrow, and finally the mouse placed over the polygon command. A few moments of waiting reveal the full tool tip; pressing the icon activates the command.

Figure 1.11 Polygon command and tool tip.

Familiarize yourself with the Ribbon by exploring it. It presents some layout advantages, and specialized Ribbons can be displayed via other workspaces. The disadvantage of this new method is that it is a relatively advanced tool that presents many advanced features right away and some confusion is liable to come up for a brand-new user. It is also not ideal for longtime users who type, and some veterans in my update classes turn the feature off. The Ribbon is the single biggest change to AutoCAD’s user interface and represents a jump forward in user/software interaction, but the ultimate decision to use it is up to