Urban Skills Portal

Overview of AutoCAD

This overview will introduce several of the basic

AutoCAD features and tools.

It will introduce: opening AutoCAD; the main

AutoCAD tool bars; common ways of drawing;
units and scale; zooming; layers; and AutoCAD
file formats.

Dont forget to save

your files regularly.
Urban Skills Portal

AutoCAD

This course is designed so commands and

instructions should work on most versions of
AutoCAD from 2012. It has, however, been
designed specifically for AutoCAD 2014.

At first you will learn the basics of AutoCAD.

Make sure you have a very good understanding

of these before continuing. This exercise will
cover important topics that are essential when
undertaking the next exercises.

Open the application AutoCAD.

When AutoCAD opens, the Open Drawing Not

an Educational Product Drawing may appear.
If this appears, click Continue to launch the
application.

The Welcome dialogue box will open. Click

Close to continue.

It is worth noting that when AutoCAD is opened,

it automatically creates a new drawing file
and assigns a generic name. In this example,
AutoCAD opened the graphics window using the
default system units and assigned the drawing
name Drawing1.dwg. This generic file name may
not be the same on all computers.

At this point we have a blank drawing.

Dont forget to save

your files regularly.
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AutoCAD Interface and Main Tools
The largest part of AutoCADs interface (the area
taken up on the screen) is the drawing area in
the middle of the screen. This is known as Model
Space.
1. Application Button - This button displays
commands for printing, saving, drawing
utilities and other non-drawing tools.
2. Quick Access Toolbar - This is for quick
access to common commands like New,
Open, Save, Plot.
Dont forget to save
your files regularly.
When it comes to Model Space there are two
main points. Model Space is infinite in size and
is not flat (like a sheet of paper) but instead
represents a three-dimensional environment.
Key AutoCAD tools are shown below.
3. Filename - The name of the current file you
are working on.
4. Search Bar - Search for text in your
drawing or search the help files.
5. Ribbon/Tabs/Panels/Tools - The Ribbon
has most of the commands and tools that
you will use while you are working. A series
of Tabs make up the Ribbon (Home, Insert,
Manage, etc.) and different Panels organize
the Tools into common groups. Tools
are the icon that by clicking will start the
commands you use to draw, modify, etc.
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6. Command line - When you type a
command, you will see it here. AutoCAD
uses this space to prompt you for
information. Even when you are using
the icons to draw, it will give you a lot of
information and tell you where you are
in the command. Keep an eye on the
command line. AutoCAD will always tell
you what it needs.
7. View Cube - this tool will adjust the view
in three-dimensional space. The square at
the middle of the tool represents a three
dimensional block and you can change
from one view to another by clicking the
different hot spots.
8. Navigation Bar this tool allows you to
quickly access 2D navigation tools such as
Pan and Zoom
9. Status Bar - It displays and allows you to
change several important drawing modes,
aids, and settings that affect how you draw
and edit in the current drawing. You can set
status bar buttons to display icons or the
traditional text labels that will be familiar
to you if youve used earlier releases. To
switch from one style to the other, right-
click any of the drawing mode buttons at
the left side of the status bar and select or
deselect Use Icons.
Tool Tip - If you hoover your mouse over a
tool, a tool tip will appear to give your more
information. Hold it longer for more information.
Dont forget to save
your files regularly.
Drawing in AutoCAD
There are two ways that you can draw in
AutoCAD, which is often referred to as input
commands.
The first is by using the toolbars and icons.
The second is by typing commands.
Using toolbars and icons is the more intuitive
and faster way to learn. However, keyboard entry
will work in most versions of AutoCAD and will
eventually be quicker.
For this exercise we will always introduce new
commands by showing you the icon thumbnail
and the associated keyboard entry.
To enter a command by using the keyboard,
type the command name on the command line
and press Enter or Spacebar.
Most commands also have abbreviated names.
For example, instead of entering line to start the
LINE command, you can enter l.
Icon: Keyboard entry: l
A list of the most common keyboard commands
for these workshops can be downloaded from
UCLeXtend.
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Units and scale Zoom

In general everything you draw in AutoCAD is Zooming in and out of a drawing is a frequent
drawn full size. When you start a drawing in activity in AutoCAD.
AutoCAD you do NOT need to decide a drawing
scale (as you do when using a drawing board) as The main zoom functions can be found by
scaling of a drawing takes place at the printing clicking on the View drop down menu. Zoom
stage. functions are displayed in the left-hand Navigate
2D section.
This has the advantage that you are able to
measure lengths, areas and volumes within Click the down arrow beside the magnifying-
AutoCAD without compensating for a scale glass button.
factor.
A menu of options will open.
The most common units used in AutoCAD are
decimal units in either millimetres or metres.
Which of these two units you use, largely
depends on the type of drawing you are
preparing. A large scale masterplan drawing
will probably be in metres whilst more detailed
public realm designs will be in millimetres.

For example, a drawing where you need to draw

a footpath in plan. The footpath is two metres
wide. If you are working in millimetres, the
footpath would be drawn in 2000 units but if you
are working in metres, the footpath would be
drawn in just 2 drawing units.

Dont forget to save

your files regularly.
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The most important zoom options are:
Mouse Wheel: To zoom in on the plan roll
the mouse wheel forward and to zoom out
roll the wheel the backward. If I want to
zoom in on a specific area place the cursor
over an area, and then roll the mouse wheel
forward or backward. Zooming is then
focused on the location of the cursor. If
you hold the mouse wheel down, you can
now pan the drawing. Using pan and zoom
together, you can quickly navigate to any
location in a file.
Extents: the Zoom Extents button zooms
out far enough to show all objects in the
drawing.
Window: This option, which is useful for
zooming in quickly and precisely, zooms to
a section of the drawing that you specify by
clicking two points. The two points define
the diagonal of a window around the area
you want to see.
Dont forget to save
your files regularly.
Layers
Layers are used to organize drawing information.
Although you can have many layers in a drawing,
you can only draw on one layer at a time. It
is important to remember that information is
always drawn in the Current Layer i.e. the
selected layer.
When you start a new drawing, AutoCAD has
only one layer. This layer is special and is called
layer 0 (zero). Layer 0 is special because you
cannot change its name or delete it and it has
certain properties which we do not need to
consider just now.
By default layer 0 is assigned the colour white
(colour number 7) and the Continuous linetype.
Layer 0 is always the current layer when you
start a new drawing, however, it is poor drawing
practice to use layer 0 for normal drawing. The
first thing you should do, therefore, when you
start a new AutoCAD drawing is to create new
layers.
Layers are listed alphabetically in layer list. It is
worth bearing this in mind when naming your
layers. Keep similar object layers together by
devising a hierarchical naming structure.
Organizing layers makes it easier to manage
the information in your drawings. You can
manipulate layers in the Layer Properties
Manager palette, which displays a list of the
layers in the drawing and their properties.
To open it, type la or click on the
icon on the Ribbon.
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Layer Properties Manager Palette
In the Layer Properties Manager palette, the first
three icons to the right of the layer name control
AutoCADs layer visibility modes:
Off/On: Click the lightbulb icon to toggle
visibility of all objects on the selected layer.
Freeze/Thaw: Click the sun icon to toggle
off visibility of all objects on the selected
layer. Click the snowflake icon to toggle
visibility on.
Lock/Unlock: Click the padlock icon to
lock and unlock layers. When a layer is
locked, you can see (but not edit) objects
on that layer.
Dont forget to save
your files regularly.
Off/On and Freeze/Thaw do almost the same
thing both settings let you make objects
visible or invisible by layer. The difference is that
frozen layers effectively dont exist temporarily,
so AutoCAD ignores them when regenerating the
drawing.
Color: Click on the icon to bring up the
Select Color dialogue box. You can select
any of the 255 standard AutoCAD colours
by picking on the colour palette. When you
have selected the colour you want, click on
the OK button to set the colour.
Linetype: in the same way that you can
assign a colour to a layer you can also
assign a linetype (continuos, dashed, etc.)
to a layer.
Lineweight: another property of lines
is their lineweight, or how wide they
display on the screen and when printed.
The method for changing the lineweight
for objects is the same to the ones for
linetypes and color.
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AutoCAD file formats
AutoCAD can use several types of drawing file.
Here are some of the common file types.
DWG This is the standard AutoCAD
drawing file format. Older versions of
AutoCAD cannot always read files created
on newer versions. The newest version
can read any of the older files. If you are
exchanging files, do not assume that
everyone is using the same version as you.
BAK This is AutoCADs backup file
format. Whenever you save a drawing,
AutoCAD automatically creates a backup
file. This file has all the same information
as the original, but a different extension.
If your original file becomes corrupt, or
unusable for any reason, you can rename
the BAK file to a DWG file and open it as
you would any other drawing file. You can
set the interval for backing up your file in
Options followed by Open and Save tab.
DXF DXF stands for Drawing eXchange
Format. This is a very standard format
that is used by many CAD and graphics
programs. This allows users to exchange
drawings even if they dont have the
same application. When you use the DXF
format, some objects may change their
appearance when re-opened. As with DWG
formats, DXF formats vary from different
releases.
JPG - You can export a drawing as a JPG.
Dont forget to save
your files regularly.
WMF The Windows Meta File can be
used if you need to use this drawing in a
non-CAD program. For example, you could
use this format to import a drawing to a
Microsoft Word document.
BMP - This is similar to a JPG, but
exports a raster BMP file instead of a JPG.
Generally JPGs are smaller and better for
e-mail and websites.
PDF - You can save your drawing as a
PDF so that others can read it with Adobe
Acrobat Reader.
There are others files that AutoCAD supports,
these however are the ones you are most likely
to use. The main thing to remember is that you
have the option of sharing your drawing with
people who don't have AutoCAD installed on
their machines.
Some Tips
Make sure you always start a new drawing
by creating additional new layers. This is
much easier than drawing entities on layer
0 and then having to change them later.
Avoid drawing on layer 0, its bad practice!
When you are trying to select objects in a
complicated drawing it may be easier to
turn some layers off first so that you dont
inadvertently select entities you dont want.
If you are working on any AutoCAD drawing
project which involves others, make sure
you devise a layer naming strategy before
drawing begins. Use common names such
as TREE or PATH rather than simply
using numbers or codes.
Right-click can help you reach a number of
useful commands such as repeat or undo
the last action and zoom and pan.
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