Tip Archives - Page 5 of 6

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2010, Other Autodesk Products, Tip

AutoCAD 2010 – Putting things back to “normal”

By Steve Johnson 16 June 2009, 12:44 pm 16 June 2009 itemprop="discussionURL"106

Edit: If you’re running a more recent release of AutoCAD, have a look at the post AutoCAD 2017 – Putting things back to “normal” instead. Easily the most popular post on this blog, in terms of both hits and comments, is AutoCAD 2009 – Putting things back to “normal”. Lots of people seemed to find it useful, so I guess it’s worth doing an updated sequel for the current release. Much of this post is the same as the original, but there are differences. Note: there are updated versions of this post for AutoCAD 2011 and 2012. One thing that’s …

AU2006, Autodesk University, Other Products, Tip

Go and snag a free Snagit, quick!

By Steve Johnson 5 June 2009, 2:32 pm 5 June 2009 itemprop="discussionURL"1

For the next few hours, you can get a free registered version of the screen capture software Snagit from TechSmith. It’s a couple of versions old and not supported on Vista, but nevertheless is well worthwhile. No, the Print Scrn key isn’t the same thing at all; Snagit is much, much more useful than that. Try it for yourself, you can thank me later. To get the freebie, first get a registration key by clicking here and then download your copy of Snagit 7.2.5 from here. Be quick, because this offer closes at 5 PM EST (9 PM GMT/UTC) today, …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2000, AutoCAD 2007, AutoCAD 2008, AutoCAD 2009, AutoCAD 2010, Bug, Interoperability, Tip

AutoCAD’s magic vanishing attachments

By Steve Johnson 30 April 2009, 10:36 pm 30 April 2009 itemprop="discussionURL"1

There are now quite a few file types that you can attach to an AutoCAD drawing as a reference, in the same way that you can attach other drawings as xrefs. We’ve been able to attach other drawings since Release 11 (1990) and images since Release 14 (1997), but every release since 2007 has introduced a new kind of attachment. In AutoCAD 2010, you can now also attach PDFs, MicroStation DGNs (v7 and v8), DWF and DWFx files. But should you? Maybe not. It depends who is going to use those drawings after you. If you know for certain that …

AutoCAD, Autodesk, Tip

Autodesk Assistance Program and the educational watermark

By Steve Johnson 17 April 2009, 1:38 pm 17 April 2009 itemprop="discussionURL"2

You have probably seen blog posts about the Autodesk Assistance Program (see the FAQ PDF), promoted as a hand-up for the less fortunate who find themselves unemployed as a result of the current financial environment. The Autodesk PR makes it clear that the free software on offer is a 13-month student license. However, the consequences of using such software are not made clear, so I’ll spell it out here. If you use Autodesk educational software, you are not supposed to use it for commercial purposes. So, if you’ve just lost your position and were hoping to set yourself up with …

Hardware, Navel Gazing, Thoughts, Tip

Buying 24″ monitors – is now the right time?

By Steve Johnson 15 April 2009, 2:27 pm 15 April 2009 itemprop="discussionURL"8

I’m doing my bit to reduce the impact of the global financial crisis. Yesterday, I went out and bought a couple of new 24″ monitors to replace my perfectly functional pair of 19″ LCDs. It now looks like I’m facing a huge wall of pixels and I don’t quite know where to look, but I felt like that after moving from my old 19″ CRT to the pair of 19″ LCDs, so I’m sure I will get used to it soon enough. The 19″ LCDs haven’t gone to waste, they are now adorning an older PC which was previously attached …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2007, Bug, Tip, TrueView

Older AutoCAD loses (part of) the plot

By Steve Johnson 23 February 2009, 11:58 am 23 February 2009 itemprop="discussionURL"26

I know there are plenty of people still using AutoCAD 2007 and earlier, so this bug warning may save some of you some grief. I have no idea how widespread or isolated this problem is, but under some circumstances I haven’t worked out yet, AutoCAD 2007 fails to plot all of certain dynamic blocks. Some attributes have a habit of being plot-shy. Even if you don’t use dynamic blocks yourself, you could receive a set of drawings, check them on-screen, approve them, plot them and send out paper drawings without all of their parts. Unless you’re carefully manually checking the …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009, AutoCAD 2010, Customisation, Polls, Tip

AutoCAD 2010 – Will you miss the Menu Browser?

By Steve Johnson 20 February 2009, 2:48 pm 20 February 2009 itemprop="discussionURL"6

I’ve closed the poll that asked AutoCAD 2009 users about their MENUBAR setting. It’s very clear that pull-down menus are still very much in use in the Ribboned world of post-2008 AutoCAD. In AutoCAD 2009, an attempt was made to provide access to pull-down menus without sacrificing that strip of screen real estate. That attempt was called the Menu Browser, it was one of the thing you could find under the Big Red A, and it really didn’t work very well. In AutoCAD 2010, the Menu Browser has gone away. The A hasn’t gone away, just the ability to access …

Comments, Other Blogs, Tip, Web Stuff

Gravatars – how to get a picture next to your comment

By Steve Johnson 17 February 2009, 1:11 pm 17 February 2009 itemprop="discussionURL"4

After some recent site maintenance here, you may have noticed that the comments look a bit different, and that some people’s comments have a little picture next to them. This little picture is called a gravatar (globally recognised avatar), and you can have one too. Once you set it up, you will find that it works in all sorts of places, not just this blog. Here’s how to do it: Visit gravatar.com and pick a sign up link. Provide a valid email address; the same one you provide when adding comments to blogs. I have not received any spam as …

AutoCAD, Autodesk, Customer Service, Other Blogs, Tip, Web Stuff

Adding Heidi

By Steve Johnson 30 January 2009, 9:50 am 30 January 2009 itemprop="discussionURL"2

Although I want to keep my list of links reasonably compact, it should not have taken until now to add the AutoCAD Insider blog of Autodesk’s Heidi Hewett to the list. Heidi’s idea of going through the AutoCAD alphabet is a great one, and I wish I had thought of it. blog nauseam has been light on for AutoCAD tips and information lately. Although that’s going to change for the better soon, there’s plenty of that kind of stuff on Heidi’s blog to keep you amused in the meantime. It’s useful stuff for all AutoCAD users, explained well. Oh, and …

Thoughts, Tip

Handy home hint

By Steve Johnson 25 January 2009, 8:32 pm 25 January 2009 itemprop="discussionURL"2

If you are turning over food on a hot barbecue plate, it’s not a good idea to use your fingers. No prizes will be awarded for guessing how I managed to come up with this little gem of wisdom.

Bug, Customer Service, Hardware, Other Products, Rant, Review, Tip

Why I won’t buy another Canon all-in-one printer

By Steve Johnson 21 October 2008, 1:10 pm 21 October 2008 itemprop="discussionURL"7

Last year, I bought a Canon MP830 printer/scanner/copier/fax/tea maker/whatever for my home office. I chose this particular device because it had all the features I was after, including CD printing, duplex printing, printing to the edge of the sheet, decent photo printing quality, and great document handling including automatic dual-sided copying. It also had theoretical high speed operation and ink economy with 5 separate tanks. It also looked like a sturdy piece of kit that wasn’t going to wobble all over the place in use, and which might stand a chance of lasting a long time. It was at the …

Autodesk, Autodesk University, Bug, Customer Service, Performance, Rant, Tip, Web Stuff

How not to do a web update

By Steve Johnson 1 October 2008, 3:44 pm 1 October 2008 itemprop="discussionURL"4

If you’re a major company and your various web-based services have evolved over time, you may have a proliferation of user IDs and some other issues to tidy up. You may be tempted to have a major overhaul. If you think your reputation among your customers isn’t low enough and you desperately want this update to be an unmitigated disaster, what should you do? If you’re dropping subtle hints about moving towards a Software as a Service model, how can you remind people about the excellent reasons that exist for avoiding dependence on on-line services in general, and on yours in particular? …

Autodesk, Bug, Customer Service, Rant, Tip, Web Stuff

Autodesk discussion group links – feedback and bookmarks

By Steve Johnson 26 September 2008, 12:36 pm 26 September 2008 itemprop="discussionURL"1

The Autodesk discussion groups are currently working. They are also still irresponsibly displaying people’s email addresses as visible user names. If you’ve posted to the discussion groups in the past, I suggest you check to see if your email address is out there for the spambots to pick up. There is now a feedback form for the discussion group and Community sites, so if you’re having problems you could try that. Hopefully, Autodesk won’t need a thousand feedback reports to work out that it’s running as slow as a wet week, the search is broken and that people’s privacy has been violated. …

Autodesk, Bug, Customer Service, Development, LISP, Tip, Web Stuff

Autodesk discussion group alternatives

By Steve Johnson 25 September 2008, 10:28 am 25 September 2008 itemprop="discussionURL"3

As I’m typing this, the Autodesk discussion groups are down for maintenance again. Let’s hope that when they come back up, some of the problems are fixed. In the meantime, if you’re an AutoCAD user and have something to ask or say, where can you go? Here are a few suggestions. I like the AUGI forums. It’s an even more modern, more graphical and less space-efficient web interface than the new Autodesk one, but there’s a good community there and, hey, the search feature works. Mike Perry and colleagues run a tight ship, so please read the rules and be …

AutoCAD, Development, LISP, Tip

What is loaded at AutoCAD startup, and when?

By Steve Johnson 1 September 2008, 2:03 pm 1 September 2008 itemprop="discussionURL"23

Warning, CAD nerd stuff ahead. This is a long and technical post and if you’re using AutoCAD in a largely out-of-the-box state you probably won’t care about any of it. If your modification of AutoCAD extends beyond the trivial, you may find it useful to know what AutoCAD loads, and in what order things are loaded. It is possible for LISP files in particular to tread on each other’s toes, so knowing what gets loaded when can be useful information for diagnosing such clashes. This post aims to provide that information. It uses AutoCAD 2009 as an example, but the …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009, Other Products, Tip

Look out for Update 1 for AutoCAD 2009-based verticals

By Steve Johnson 13 August 2008, 1:38 pm 13 August 2008 itemprop="discussionURL"4

If you have Communications Center disabled (this is quite common, it seems) or you’re not currently using your 2009-based vertical product, you may be unaware that Autodesk has released versions of Update 1 (formerly known as SP1) for the architectural and civil variants of AutoCAD 2009. Expect the other verticals to follow soon. A visit to the Autodesk site and search for “Update 1” currently returns 18 results. As usual, read the Readme first and exercise caution (or even paranoia) before installing.

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009, Tip

AutoCAD 2009 – Ribbon content for Express Tools

By Steve Johnson 13 June 2008, 2:49 pm 13 June 2008 itemprop="discussionURL"0

One of the many unfinished aspects of the AutoCAD 2009 Ribbon is the lack of Express Tools content. One enterprising user has put the effort into correcting this, and has posted an Express Tools CUI replacement in this Autodesk newsgroup thread. I have not tested this myself. As usual with CUI, be paranoid. Back up everything before you touch anything. While I wouldn’t normally suggest you do any Ribbon custom work in 2009 in its current state, it shouldn’t hurt in this case as it should be easily redoable once Autodesk has fixed up the worst of the 2009 CUI …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009, Bug, Tip

AutoCAD 2009 – Drawing integrity tip – urgent!

By Steve Johnson 5 May 2008, 8:50 pm 5 May 2008 itemprop="discussionURL"0

AutoCAD 2009 users, I strongly suggest you go and set the new system variable OPENPARTIAL to 0. Now. Why? Because if it’s set to the default value of 1, purging can be harmful to your drawings. I’ll fill in the details in a future Bug Watch column, but for now I suggest you just go and fix up that variable. It’s stored in the Registry, so you should only need to do it once unless you use multiple profiles, in which case you should do it once per profile.

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009, Other Blogs, Tip

AutoCAD 2009 – Putting things back to normal revisited

By Steve Johnson 1 May 2008, 9:52 am 1 May 2008 itemprop="discussionURL"0

I see Lynn Allen has written a post explaining how to restore the “classic” interface. I commend Lynn for doing this in response to the requests she’s been receiving. It must be pretty painful for some people at Autodesk to see their Technical Evangelist showing people how to turn off AutoCAD 2009’s Big New Feature, but it’s absolutely the right thing for her to do. The worst thing Autodesk can do right now is go into denial mode, which has happened more than once in the past when users have reacted negatively to various things. This post from Lynn gives …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2008, AutoCAD 2009, Bug, Other Blogs, Tip

The _XREF_XREF killer – update

By Steve Johnson 28 April 2008, 10:41 am 28 April 2008 itemprop="discussionURL"0

If you saw my post or Shaan Hurley’s post about this utility and grabbed it on or before 27 April, please go and grab it again. It’s been updated to fix a couple of bugs.