AutoCAD 2005 For Dummies

by Middlebrook, Mark

• ISBN13: 9780764571381
• ISBN10: 0764571389
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-05-14
• Publisher: For Dummies

Summary

Shows how to use the leading technical drawing software-AutoCAD-and its less-expensive sister product, AutoCAD LT, in the friendly, easy-to-understand For Dummies style Shows first-time AutoCAD users how to create precise and efficient 2-D technical drawings and get started with 3-D technical drawings Topics covered include creating a basic layout; drawing and editing; writing text in drawings; plotting, creating, and editing external reference files; CAD standards; and drawing on the Internet Explores new features in the latest version of AutoCAD, including text improvements, streamlined Plot and Page Setup dialogue boxes, increased emphasis on tool palettes, better tools for transmitting sets of electronic files, and much more Includes a new chapter on sheet sets and a new collection of features for creating, managing, and publishing all of the drawings that make up a project

Author Biography

Mark Middlebrook used to be an engineer but gave it up when he discovered that he couldn’t handle a real job. He is now principal of Daedalus Consulting, an independent CAD and computer consulting company in Oakland, California. (In case you wondered, Daedalus was the guy in ancient Greek legend who built the labyrinth on Crete. Mark named his company after Daedalus before he realized that few of his clients would be able to pronounce it and even fewer spell it.) Mark is also a contributing editor for CADALYST magazine and Webmaster of markcad.com. When he’s not busy being a cad, Mark sells and writes about wine for Paul Marcus Wines in Oakland. He also teaches literature and philosophy classes at St. Mary’s College of California — hence “Daedalus.” AutoCAD 2005 For Dummies is his sixth book on AutoCAD.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(1)
What's Not in This Book	1	(1)
Who Are --- and Aren't --- You?	2	(1)
How This Book Is Organized	2	(3)
AutoCAD 101	3	(1)
Let There Be Lines	3	(1)
If Drawings Could Talk	4	(1)
Share and Share Alike	4	(1)
The Part of Tens	4	(1)
Icons Used in This Book	5	(1)
A Few Conventions --- Just in Case	5	(2)
Part I: AutoCAD 101	7	(64)
Introducing AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT 2005	9	(8)
Why AutoCAD?	10	(1)
The Importance of Being DWG	11	(2)
Seeing the LT	13	(1)
Staying Alive with 2005	14	(3)
Le Tour de AutoCAD 2005	17	(24)
AutoCAD Does Windows	18	(1)
AutoCAD's Opening Screen Cuisine	19	(14)
Standard Windows fare	19	(4)
Looking for Mr. Status Bar	23	(3)
Take an order: The command line area	26	(4)
Main course: The drawing area	30	(3)
A Palette-Cleanser	33	(2)
What Really Makes AutoCAD Cook?	35	(3)
Sizzling system variables	35	(2)
Delicious dialog boxes	37	(1)
Fun with F1	38	(3)
Setup for Success	41	(30)
An Appetizing Setup Strategy	42	(9)
Choosing your units	44	(1)
Weighing your scales	45	(2)
Thinking about paper	47	(3)
Defending your border	50	(1)
All system variables go	50	(1)
Getting Creative with Templates	51	(3)
The Main Course: Model Space	54	(8)
Setting your units	54	(1)
Telling your drawing its limits	55	(2)
Making the drawing area snap-py (and grid-dy)	57	(2)
Setting linetype and dimension scales	59	(2)
Entering drawing properties	61	(1)
Plot Layouts for Any Palate	62	(6)
Creating a layout	63	(3)
Copying and changing layouts	66	(1)
Lost in paper space	67	(1)
Cooking Up Terrific Templates	68	(3)
Part II: Let There Be Lines	71	(132)
Get Ready to Draw	73	(28)
Drawing and Editing with AutoCAD	73	(1)
Managing Your Properties	74	(11)
Putting it on a layer	75	(2)
Accumulating properties	77	(3)
Creating new layers	80	(5)
Using AutoCAD DesignCenter	85	(3)
Named objects	85	(1)
Getting (Design) Centered	85	(2)
Copying layers between drawings	87	(1)
Precise-liness Is Next to CAD-liness	88	(13)
Keyboard capers: Coordinate entry	90	(2)
Grab an object and make it snappy	92	(5)
Other precision practices	97	(4)
Where to Draw the Line	101	(28)
Introducing the AutoCAD Drawing Commands	102	(2)
The Straight and Narrow: Lines, Polylines, and Polygons	104	(11)
Toe the line	104	(3)
Connect the lines with polyline	107	(5)
Square off with rectangle	112	(1)
Choose your sides with polygon	113	(2)
(Throwing) Curves	115	(11)
Going full circle	115	(1)
Arc-y-ology	116	(3)
Ellipses (S. Grant?)	119	(2)
Splines: The sketchy, sinuous curves	121	(2)
Donuts: The circles with a difference	123	(1)
Revision clouds on the horizon	124	(2)
Scoring Points	126	(3)
Edit for Credit	129	(38)
Commanding and Selecting	129	(2)
Command-first editing	130	(1)
Selection-first editing	130	(1)
Choosing an editing style	130	(1)
Grab It	131	(3)
One-by-one selection	132	(1)
Selection boxes left and right	132	(2)
Perfecting Selecting	134	(3)
Ready, Get Set, Edit!	137	(19)
The Big Three: Move, CoPy, and Stretch	138	(9)
More manipulations	147	(4)
Slicing and dicing	151	(5)
Get a Grip	156	(11)
About grips	156	(1)
A gripping example	157	(3)
Move it!	160	(1)
Copy, or a kinder, gentler Move	160	(2)
A warm-up Stretch	162	(5)
A Zoom with a View	167	(12)
Zoom and Pan with Glass and Hand	167	(4)
Out of the frying pan	169	(1)
Time to zoom	170	(1)
A View by Any Other Name	171	(2)
Looking Around in Layout Land	173	(3)
Degenerating and Regenerating	176	(3)
On a 3D Spree	179	(24)
Is 3D for Me?	180	(4)
Getting Your 3D Bearings	184	(6)
Model space viewports left and right	184	(1)
Seeing the world from new viewpoints	185	(2)
Dynamic viewpoints with 3DOrbit	187	(3)
A Cartesian Orientation	190	(3)
Coordinate systems: The WCS and UCS	190	(1)
Specifying coordinates in 3D	191	(2)
Drawing in 3D	193	(7)
Drawing 3D lines and polylines	193	(1)
Extruding from 2D to 3D	194	(2)
Meshing around with surface meshes	196	(1)
A solid(s) foundation	197	(2)
Editing in three dimensions	199	(1)
Ending with Rendering	200	(3)
Part III: If Drawings Could Talk	203	(90)
Text with Character	205	(24)
Getting Ready to Write	206	(7)
Simply stylish text	206	(3)
Taking your text to new heights	209	(3)
One line or two?	212	(1)
Your text will be justified	212	(1)
Using the Same Old Line	213	(2)
Saying More in Multiline Text	215	(8)
Making it with mText	215	(3)
New mText might in AutoCAD 2005	218	(2)
Keeping tabs (and indents) on your mText	220	(2)
Modifying mText	222	(1)
Setting the Text Table	223	(4)
Tables have style, too	223	(1)
Creating and editing tables	224	(3)
Checking Out Your Spelling	227	(2)
Entering New Dimensions	229	(26)
Discovering New Dimensions	231	(4)
Anatomy of a dimension	231	(1)
A field guide to dimensions	232	(1)
Dimension associativity	233	(1)
Pulling out your dimension tools	234	(1)
Doing Dimensions with Style(s)	235	(7)
Borrowing existing dimension styles	235	(2)
Creating and managing dimension styles	237	(2)
Adjusting style settings	239	(3)
Drawing Dimensions	242	(5)
Lining up some linear dimensions	243	(3)
Drawing other kinds of dimensions	246	(1)
Trans-spatial dimensioning	246	(1)
Editing Dimensions	247	(3)
Editing dimension geometry	247	(1)
Editing dimension text	248	(1)
Controlling and editing dimension associativity	249	(1)
Pointy-Headed Leaders	250	(5)
Down the Hatch	255	(12)
Hatch . . . Hatch . . . Hatchoo	256	(2)
Pushing the Boundary (of) Hatch	258	(6)
Hatch from scratch	259	(2)
Getting it right: Hatch angle and scale	261	(1)
Do fence me in: Defining hatch boundaries	262	(2)
Hatching that knows its place	264	(1)
Have palette, will hatch	264	(1)
Editing Hatch Objects	264	(3)
The Plot Thickens	267	(26)
You Say Printing, I Say Plotting	267	(3)
Get with the system	268	(1)
Configure it out	269	(1)
A Simple Plot	270	(6)
Plotting success in 16 steps	271	(3)
Preview one, two	274	(1)
Instead of fit, scale it	275	(1)
Plotting the Layout of the Land	276	(3)
About paper space layouts and plotting	276	(1)
The path to paper space layout plotting success	277	(2)
Plotting Lineweights and Colors	279	(8)
Plotting with style	279	(4)
Plotting through thick and thin	283	(2)
Plotting in color	285	(2)
It's a (Page) Setup!	287	(1)
Continuing the Plot Dialog	288	(3)
Troubles with Plotting	291	(2)
Part IV: Share and Share Alike	293	(74)
Playing Blocks and Rasteroids	295	(26)
Rocking with Blocks	296	(13)
Creating block definitions	298	(3)
Inserting blocks	301	(3)
Attributes: Fill-in-the-blank blocks	304	(4)
Exploding blocks	308	(1)
Going External	309	(7)
Becoming attached to your xrefs	311	(1)
Layer-palooza	312	(1)
Creating and editing an external reference file	313	(1)
Forging an xref path	313	(1)
Managing xrefs	314	(2)
Blocks, Xrefs, and Drawing Organization	316	(1)
Mastering the Raster	316	(5)
Attaching an image	318	(1)
Managing images	319	(2)
Sheet Sets without Regrets	321	(16)
Taming Sheet Sets	322	(1)
Using an Existing Sheet Set	323	(2)
The Sheet Set Setup	325	(1)
Getting Your Sheets Together	326	(7)
Adding existing sheets to a set	327	(1)
Sheet subsets	328	(1)
Creating new sheets for a set	329	(1)
Assembling sheet views from resource drawings	330	(3)
Making an Automatic Sheet List	333	(4)
CAD Standards Rule	337	(10)
Why CAD Standards?	338	(1)
Which CAD Standards?	339	(2)
What Needs to Be Standardized?	341	(3)
Plotting	341	(1)
Layers	342	(1)
Other stuff	343	(1)
Cool Standards Tools	344	(3)
Drawing on the Internet	347	(20)
The Internet and AutoCAD: An Overview	348	(2)
Sending Strategies	350	(8)
Send it with Etransmit	351	(1)
Rapid eTransmit	352	(2)
Transmitting multiple drawings	354	(1)
FTP for you and me	355	(1)
Bad reception?	355	(1)
Help from the Reference Manager	356	(2)
Drawing Web Format --- Not Just for the Web	358	(6)
All about DWF	358	(1)
ePlot, not replot	359	(1)
Making DWFs with ePlot	360	(1)
Making DWFs (or Plots) with Publish	361	(2)
Hand-y objects	363	(1)
Autodesk Express Viewer	363	(1)
The Drawing Protection Racket	364	(3)
Part V: The Part of Tens	367	(16)
Ten Ways to Do No Harm	369	(4)
Be Precise	369	(1)
Control Properties by Layer	369	(1)
Know Your Drawing Scale Factor	370	(1)
Know Your Space	370	(1)
If Someone (Sheet) Set It, Don't Forget It	370	(1)
Explode with Care	370	(1)
Don't Cram Your Geometry	371	(1)
Freeze Instead of Erase	371	(1)
Use CAD Standards	371	(1)
Save and Back Up Drawings Regularly	372	(1)
Ten Ways to Swap Drawing Data with Other People and Programs	373	(10)
DWG	374	(2)
DXF	376	(1)
DWF	376	(1)
PDF	376	(1)
WMF	377	(1)
BMP, JPEG, TIFF, and Other Raster Formats	377	(2)
Windows Clipboard	379	(1)
OLE	379	(1)
Screen Capture	380	(1)
TXT and RTF	381	(2)
Index	383