Five Simple Tips for AutoCAD

As my forced change to a different blog theme (thanks IE7) has meant the demise of my random AutoCAD tip feature, you may as well have the tips in a blog post instead. Here are the first five. These are fairly simple tips that apply to all recent releases. You probably know most of them, but just in case…

1. If you need to draw circles, slots or rectangles around multiple text objects, use the Express Tools command TCIRCLE (Express > Text > Enclose Text with Object).
2. When using the TRIM or EXTEND command, you don’t have to select any edges. Just hit Enter and AutoCAD will assume all of the visible objects are to be used.
3. The TRIM or EXTEND commands can be used in place of each other by using the Shift key. When picking an object in TRIM, hold down Shift and the object will extend.
4. The MULTIPLE command will force the next command you enter to repeat until you hit Esc. In CUI or menu macros, you can do something similar by starting the macro with *^C^C instead of just ^C^C.
5. You can fillet or chamfer all vertices of a polyline at once. Use the FILLET or CHAMFER command’s Polyline option and pick just once instead of picking every corner twice.

That’s it for now, five more tips later.