by John Flanagan
Here are five useful tips to improve your productivity in AutoCAD 2013
1. Selection Cycling
Selection Cycling
- Toggle on selection cycling mode on application status bar
- Making ambiguous selection invokes Selection window
- Hovering the cursor over items in the Selection dialog box highlights the items on the drawing canvas
- Selection cycling makes it easy to select exactly what you are looking for in crowded drawings
2. Selecting Similar Objects
Selecting Similar Objects
- Click a single object, right click and choose Select Similar from the shortcut menu
- All similar objects are immediately selected
- Type SE within the SELECTSIMILAR command to access its Settings dialog box where you can determine degree of similarity that triggers selection
3. Trim and Extend
Trim and Extend
- Trim and Extend are opposite commands
- Both can be invoked from the same command prompt
- Hold Shift while in TRIM to EXTEND and vice-versa
- Accepting the default of < select all> to select all objects as potential cutting or boundary edges is very efficient
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4. Offset
Offset
- Offset can create new geometry
- You don’t have to know the offset distance to use offset; pick two points to “set” the offset distance graphically
- Select the object you wish to offset
- Pick the side (above, below, left, or right) you wish to offset the new object
- There is an Erase option that allows you to automatically erase the source object after offsetting if desired
- There is a Multiple option that allows you to offset very quickly. This option can be activated directly from the command line prompt (read my earlier blog on AutoCAD’s Floating Command Line).
5. Grip Editing
Grip Editing
- Select an object or set of objects
- Click one or more grips (hold Shift to select multiple)
- Press the Spacebar to cycle through STRETCH, MOVE, ROTATE, SCALE, and MIRROR commands
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