KEEP ACAD 2004! It has a landscape library that was discontinued after 2006.
TREEDEPTH -- set per drawing. Default is 3020 (spatial indexing is on). Zero turns it off. 2D drawings should have it set to a negative value, to ignore the z coordinates for greater efficiency. I can see setting it to 3020 on base drawings that use 3D coordinates but to -3020 on drawing sheets.
ISOLINES – keep number really low or it will take forever to calculate. Range is from 0 to 2047. As an example, at default of 4, a tire in 3D shows lines across it at 4 vertices, but with isolines set to 0 will show no lines.
To get dimensions with text mask, create dimension sample and then edit its text to include the background mask. Then you have to highlight the dimension and go into its properties and for text background fill, select “drawing background”. I just found that setting DIMTFILL to 1 does that background mask to all new dimensions, without having to do the text thing! It’s just that it’s a pre-drawing setting..
Another trick is to assign a hyperlink to the pline to that it takes you to that layout sheet. 1. Save each Layout with a VIEW name 2. In Modelspace, enter command HYPERLINK and select the closed Pline 3. When the Hyperlink Manager appears, click on the "View of this Drawing" button 4. Click on the desired layout tab name, and select the View you saved for that layout, and click "ok" Now, back in modelspace, simply hold down the Ctrl key and click your left mouse button on the pline
-dwgunits brings up the selection of 6 drawing units (inches, feet, plus 6 metric)
Typing MULTIPLE
TCIRCLE puts either a circle, rectangle, or box with rounded ends (called “slots”) around any text object you choose!
If the menu is gone, type PREFERENCES to bring up the options box. Check out PROPULATE in the expresstools help TCASE toggles upper/lower and lots of other text options! XLINE makes an infinite line, good for construction lines. Ray I similar but has a start point and goes to infinity in one direction.
-purge instead of purge (can get to regapps for example)
M2P – when drawing lines you can start midway between two points when you can’t use mid
Check out the ALIGN command
If a drawing is open by someone else, open it read only and type WHOHAS SYSVDLG brings up a list of the system variables SOLPROF makes a 2D snapshot of a 3D object, much like FLATSHOT SOLID makes a solid-filled polygon
If you rotate a viewport and your dimension text needs rotated 180, select it and in properties, change text direction to right-to-left and position below the line!
INSBASE I don’t know why anyone would change this from 0,0,0 but it’s possible. It tells a drawing where an inserted object’s 0,0,0 will be offset to . I take it that was a quick fix to some elements in a set being off by a certain amount, but it’s scary to resort to that… You can dimension an angle greater than 90 degrees, by specifying vertex (command line option), then picking start and end of the angle. Then it lets you place the angle whichever side you wish…
For those times when it seems the layer list is not in alphabetical order, try increasing the MAXSORT. PELLIPSE = 0 (true ellipse) or =1 (polyline approximation of an ellipse)
To copy a viewport from one layout to another and retain its layer settings, make a block out of it first and insert the block into the new layout. Once exploded it shows the same settings as the original!
When grip-editing, hold-click a grip and press the spacebar and you cycle through different options such as copy, move, rotate and mirror.
To import a layout, right-click a new tab and select “from target”. Choose dwg instead of dwt and look for the layout of the pre-existing drawing.
Items can be copied along a meandering path by using the alignment variable to the measure or divide command.
SPACESWITCH controls whether double-clicking in a viewport takes you into modelspace!
There’s a tickbox to make annotative text always horizontal to the viewport regardless of whether the viewport is rotated…
You can correct existing blocks by having the correct block in another drawing, and opening it in Design Center. Then apparently you right-click the correct block and use the Redefine option…
If a block was created to not allow exploding, just type B and select block and check “allow exploding” and redefine. Can it be that easy to uncheck “scale uniformly”?
To get less than/equal sign: in Mtext type <^- then highlight all, right-click and select Stack.
CTRL-R is what hops you from one PS viewport to another. Handy for when they overlap…
VSEDGES = 0 (no edges on 3D); 1 = Isolines; 2 = Facet Edges VSFACEOPACITY is what controls the x-ray state
To rotate a view to match a current UCS, establish the UCS and then PLAN (current UCS). In paperspace you can also use MVSETUP align, and rotate view.
SELECTIONANNOSDISPLAY turns off the ghost images of multiple scaled objects
With PICKFIRST set to 1, right-clicking the section plane line will give you the option to generate a 2D block of the section cut
Old Expresstools items – Fullscreen, Fullscreenon, Fullscreenoff, Fullscreenoptions
IndexCTL = 0 (none) = 1 (layer) = 2 (spatial) = 3 (both)
XLoadCTL = 0 (off) = 1 (on); = 2 (on with copy) XLOADPATH If a block has attributes, you can change their order by going into the block editor, right-clicking on an attribute, and selecting Attribute Order – Move Up or Down
SDI = 0; one session multiple drawings SDI = 1; new session for each drawing
In 2011, to edit scale of materials: 1. Open Materials Browser box 2. Select your material – this opens the Materials Editor box 3. To the right of the word Image is a picture of your material. Right-click and select Edit Image, which brings up the textures Editor box 4. Click triangle next to Transforms to see the Scale option.
OSMODE sets which osnaps are on (if any) – each has a number, so a combo is the sum of some numbers.
Command line entries for drawing arcs from survey info: Command: ARC Specify start point of arc or [Center]: (pick lower left endpoint) Specify second point of arc or [Center/End]: E Specify end point of arc: END of (pick upper right endpoint) Specify center point of arc or [Angle/Direction/Radius]: R Specify radius of arc: 744.84
-or-
Specify center point of arc or [Angle/Direction/Radius]: A Specify included angle: 2d53'50"