01
What preparations do I need to start drawing?
Answer: Computer drawing is the same as manual drawing, and some necessary preparations must be made. Such as setting layer, line type, dimension style, target capture, unit format, drawing limit, etc. A lot of repetitive work can be done in advance in the template drawing such as ACAD.DWT.
02
What scale is good for drawing in AutoCAD?
Answer: It is best to use a 1:1 ratio to draw, and the output ratio can be adjusted at will. Drawing ratio and output ratio are two concepts. When outputting, use "output 1 unit = drawing 500 units" to output at a ratio of 1/500, and if "output 10 units = drawing 1 unit" is to enlarge the output by 10 times. There are many advantages to drawing with a 1:1 ratio:
First, it is easy to find mistakes. Since the drawing is based on the actual size, it is easy to find the place where the size setting is unreasonable.
Second, it is very convenient to mark the size. What is the size number, the software will measure it by itself.
Third, when copying partial graphics or using blocks between various drawings, it is convenient to adjust the size of the blocks because they are all in a 1:1 ratio.
Fourth, it is very convenient to assemble an assembly drawing from a part drawing or disassemble a part drawing from an assembly drawing.
Fifth, there is no need to perform cumbersome scale reduction and enlargement calculations, which improves work efficiency and prevents possible errors in the conversion process.
03
What are layers for?
Answer: Reasonable use of layers can get twice the result with half the effort. As soon as you start drawing, pre-set some basic layers. Each layer has its own special purpose. The advantage of this is that you only need to draw a graphic file to combine many required drawings, and you can also modify the layers when you need to modify it.
04
What's up with command aliases?
Answer: In order to facilitate the input of commands and save memorizing the full English name, you can use the command alias (ALIAS) instead of the command. For example, entering C is equivalent to entering the CIRCLE command, and L is equivalent to the LINE command. Command aliases can greatly speed up command input and improve drawing efficiency. Veterans generally type commands with their left hand and click the mouse with their right hand.
Command aliases are set in the ACAD.PGP file, which can be edited with any text editor. AutoCAD provides the tool ALIASEDIT to modify the command alias, and edit the alias interactively in the form of a dialog box.
05
Before drawing, should the drawing limits (LIMITS) be set?
Answer: It is best to set the map boundary according to the national standard map size when drawing a new map. The graphic boundary is like the format of the drawing. When drawing a picture, it is within the drawing boundary, which is clear at a glance. It is very convenient to print the pictures drawn according to the picture boundary, and it can also realize automatic batch output of pictures. Of course, some people are used to drawing multiple graphs in one graphics file, so setting the graph boundary does not make much sense.
06
After dimensioning, some small white spots sometimes appear in the drawing, but cannot be removed?
Answer: AutoCAD automatically generates a DEFPOINTS layer when dimensioning, and saves information such as the position of the marked point. This layer is generally frozen. For some reason the dots sometimes show up. To delete it, first unfreeze the DEFPOINTS layer and then delete it. However, it should be noted that if the point associated with the dimension is deleted, the corresponding dimension will be deleted at the same time.
07
I am used to the full-screen cross cursor on R12, but the cursor on R14 is very small, what should I do?
Answer: You can click the menu Toolspreferencespoint device and set the percentage of the cursor to 100% (the default is 5%). You can also modify the CURSORSIZE system variable directly on the command line.
08
Is OSNAP useful?
Answer: It is very useful. Especially when drawing mechanical drawings that require high precision, target capture is the best tool for precise point determination. Autodesk also attaches great importance to this. Every time the version is upgraded, the function of target capture has been greatly improved. Do not use the cursor line to directly fix the point, such a point cannot be very accurate.
09
Why is the hatching or dimensioning line drawn not continuous?
Answer: The section lines and dimensions drawn by AutoCAD can have line type attributes. If the current linetype is not continuous, hatches and dimensions will not be drawn as continuous.
edit questions
10
How to use the "command cancel" key of R12?
Answer: The default "command cancel" key of R14 is "ESC". If you are used to the "Ctrl+C" of R12, you can click the menu Toolspreferencescompatibilitypriority for accelerator keysAutoCAD classic, and then you can use "Ctrl+C" to cancel the command, and at the same time "ESC ” key still works.
11
How to cut multiple line segments at once?
Answer: When prompted to select the graphics to be cut in the TRIM command, the commonly used window and crossing selection methods are not supported. When multiple line segments are to be cut, it must be selected multiple times to complete. At this time, you can use the fence selection method. When the trim command prompts to select the graphics to be trimmed, enter "f", then draw a dotted line on the screen, press Enter, and all the graphics intersecting with the dotted line will be cut off.
Similarly, for the EXTEND command, enter F at the select object: prompt to extend multiple entities at once.
12
Why do deleted lines pop up again?
Answer: The biggest possibility is that several lines overlap together. This is a very common question for newbies.
In addition, when a center line or dotted line changes the line type ratio, it still looks like a continuous line (after REGEN), which is probably the reason.
13
How to quickly transform layers?
Answer: Click the "Make objects layer current" button (the leftmost button of the tool bar) on the "Object Properties" toolbar, and then select any graphic on the desired layer in the drawing area, The current layer is immediately transformed to the layer where the selected graphic is located.
14
How to deal with hand-drawn drawings, especially there are many engineering drawings drawn by hand in the past?
A: It may be a way to scan the drawings into the computer. But note that the graphics processed by AutoCAD are vector graphics, while the scanned drawings form bitmaps. The difference in nature between the two makes it possible to insert graphics files generated by scanning drawings into AutoCAD, but you can only watch them and not edit. There are also some vectorization tools that can convert bitmaps into vector graphics, but limited to the technical level, the conversion efficiency and effect are not satisfactory.
15
How to reduce file size?
Answer: After the graphics are finished, execute the PURGE command to clean up redundant data, such as useless blocks, layers without entities, unused line types, fonts, size styles, etc., which can effectively reduce the file size. Generally, a thorough cleaning requires PURGE 2~3 times.
In addition, by default, saving to disk in R14 is appended, which is faster. If you need to free up disk space, you must set the ISAVEPERCENT system variable to 0 to turn off this gradual saving feature, so that the file size will be reduced when you save it for the second time.
16
How to set up auto save function?
Answer: Set the variable SAVETIME to a smaller value, such as 10 (minutes). AutoCAD default save time is 120 minutes.
17
How to restore the automatically saved graphics?
Answer: AutoCAD stores the automatically saved graphics in the AUTO.SV$ or AUTO?.SV$ file, find the file and rename it as a graphics file to open it in AutoCAD.
Generally, this file is stored in the temporary directory of WINDOWS, such as C:WINDOWSTEMP.
18
How to restore the data when the original image is overwritten by mistaken saving?
Answer: If it is only saved once, change the file with the same name with the suffix of BAK to the suffix of DWG in time, and then open it in AutoCAD. If saved multiple times, the original image cannot be restored.
19
Why does the prompt appear on the command line instead of popping up the open or Export dialog?
Answer: The AutoCAD system variable FILEDIA is used to control the display of the file list dialog box. When FILEDIA is set to 1, these dialog boxes will be displayed. If FILEDIA is set to 0, enter a symbol "~" to respond to the command you choose For the first question, you still get a dialog displayed. Of course, when invoking a file manipulation command from a batch command or an AutoLISP/ADSRX/ObjectARX application, you need a command line prompt, not a dialog box.
20
The date and time of the file in the file browser are not refreshed when a graph is saved?
Answer: Autodesk has discovered this problem, it only appears in the Win95B operating system, never happened in the Win95A or Windows NT environment. As an expedient measure, you can set the system variable ISAVEPERCENT to 0 in AutoCAD R14, so that AutoCAD rewrites the entire drawing content every time it is saved, which may make the saving time longer, but it can ensure that the file date is refreshed correctly.
font problem
twenty one
Why can't Chinese characters be displayed? Or the entered Chinese characters become question marks?
Answer: The reason may be:
1. The corresponding font does not use Chinese fonts, such as HZTXT.SHX, etc.;
2. There is no Chinese character font shape file in the current system; the used shape file should be copied to the font directory of AutoCAD (generally...FONTS);
3. For some symbols, such as Greek letters, etc., the corresponding font shape file must also be used, otherwise it will be displayed as a question mark.
twenty two
How to solve the problem of garbled Chinese characters when opening R12 files in R14?
Answer: When using R14 to open the R12 file, even if the Chinese character font file is selected correctly, Chinese characters will still be garbled. The reason is that the code page DWGPAGECODE used by R14 and R12 is different. You can download the code page conversion tool wnewcp from the AutoDesk company home page. After running wnewcp, first select the "R11/R12" check box, then click the "Browse" button, select the file or directory to be converted, and then select the new code page (ANSI), click "Start Conversion" to start the conversion . After conversion, Chinese characters can be displayed correctly in R14.
The code conversion tool DWGCODE.EXE provided by Tianzheng can also perform code conversion.
If you don't have these tools, you can open the graphics file to be converted in the R12 environment, enter DWGCODEPAGE in the COMMAND state, modify its value to ASCII and save the file.
Batch modification can be realized by using SCR command group file or LISP programming.
twenty three
Why can't the input text height be changed?
Answer: When the height value of the font used is not 0, there is no prompt to enter the height when using the DTEXT command to write text, so the height of the written text remains unchanged, including the dimension marked with this font.
twenty four
How to change the existing font format?
Answer: If you want to change the size, font, aspect ratio, spacing, slant angle, insertion point, etc. of the existing text, it is best to use the "Properties (DDMODIFY)" command (provided that you have defined many text formats). Click the "Properties" command, click the text to be modified, press Enter, and the "Modify Text" window will appear, select the item to be modified and modify it.
25
Can system fonts be used, such as Arial, Kai, etc.?
Answer: Although ACADR14 can use *.TTF Chinese character font files, but this kind of font consumes too much CPU time. For computers with lower grades, the display speed (such as when using the real-time zoom command) is too slow. It is recommended to use *.shx files for low-end computers. Among the Chinese character *.shx files, it is recommended to use the HZ*.shx font file provided by Daheng or Haochen Company for ACADR12, but if there is no corresponding font on different machines, it will cause Chinese character display problems. Of course, it’s okay to use a small amount of system fonts for the sake of aesthetics.
menu question
26
Why are the toolbar button icons replaced by smiley faces?
Answer: When AutoCAD cannot find the path of the button bitmap file, the icon of these buttons in the toolbar or tool box will be replaced by a smiley face. This may occur when the menu template file (MNU) is manually edited after the toolbar has been customized.
In this case, you can use a text editor to open the menu source file (MNS) and menu template file (MNU), copy the customized toolbar part from the MNS file, paste it into the MNU file, and then rename or delete the old MNS, MNC and MNR files, and then use the MENU/MENULOAD command to load the MNU file, AutoCAD will recompile the menu file to generate new MNS, MNC and MNR files, which will solve the problem.
Also, this problem occurs if the bitmap file is not on the AutoCAD support path. Make sure that the supported paths in the Preferences dialog include the directory where the bitmap file is located. For example, if you move a button from a custom toolbar to a toolbar in AutoCAD's standard menu, you must edit the button file so that the bitmap file is saved in a supported path. You can do it in the following steps:
1. After moving or copying the icon to a different menu toolbar, with the toolbar dialog still open, right-click the icon to edit it.
2. In the Button Properties dialog box, select the "Edit" button.
3. In the button editor dialog box, select the Save as button and specify the bitmap file directory in the path supported by AutoCAD.
4. Close the button editor, then select the Apply button in the button properties dialog box, and finally close AutoCAD and restart it.
27
How to localize the menu?
Answer: Under WIN95/98, use an editor such as WordPad to edit the acad.mnu file under the support directory, change the English command name in [ ] to Chinese, save and exit. Then enter the "menu" command in R14 to load the acad.mnu menu file, and the drop-down menu will become Chinese.
If there is a Chinese menu
The file can be used directly.
28
After the PLOT and ASE commands, only prompts can appear on the command line, and there is no pop-up dialog box?
Answer: The AutoCAD system variable CMDDIA is used to control the dialog box display of the PLOT command and the ASE command. Setting CMDDIA to 1 can solve the problem.
29
The effect of the printed image is very poor, and the lines have grayscale differences. Why?
Answer: This situation is mostly related to the printer or plotter configuration, driver, and operating system. Usually, the problem can be solved by considering the following points.
(1) When configuring the printer or plotter, whether the error dithering switch is turned off;
(2) Whether the driver of the printer or plotter is correct and needs to be upgraded;
(3) If AutoCAD is configured to output as a system printer, use the ADI driver provided by AutoCAD for various printers and plotters to reconfigure the AutoCAD printer;
(4) For different types of printers or plotters, AutoCAD provides corresponding commands, which can be further configured in detail.
For example, for plotter series that support HPGL/2 language, you can use the command "hpconfig";
(5) In the AutoCAD Plot dialog box, set the corresponding relationship between the pen number and the color, line type, and pen width; specify the same pen number (preferably 1) for different colors, but the corresponding pen number Line type and pen width can be different. Some inkjet printers can only support pen numbers from 1 to 16, and if the pen number is too large, it cannot print;
(6) Whether the pen width setting is too large, for example greater than 1;
(7) If the operating system is Windows NT, an updated NT patch package (Service Pack) may be required.
30
After installing R14, there are no fonts in MS WORD, what's the matter?
Answer: The reason for affecting the MS WORD font is related to a virtual printer called Phantom AutoCAD OLE/ADI installed by R14 for the system. Phantom AutoCAD OLE/ADI virtual printer enables R14 to print or draw raster graphics through the new ADI driver. In the typical installation of R14, this option is not included. This virtual printer will only be generated during full installation or custom installation, and sometimes it will be set as the default system printer without any prompts.
According to the "what you see is what you get" principle of Microsoft Office software, the fonts used in MS WORD documents are related to the default printer of the system. That is to say, the font displayed on the screen should be the same or similar to the font printed by the printer.
Windows will firstly search for a suitable screen font based on the printer's print font. If no matching font is found, or the printer driver does not provide screen font information, Windows will choose the screen font that is closest to the printer font. If the virtual printer of Phantom AutoCAD OLE/ADI is used as the default system printer, there are only two fonts for MS WORD: morden and plotter.
In the Windows system, specify the correct system printer as the default printer, and the font of MS WORD can be restored to normal. If there are no other printers in the system, you should first configure a Windows system printer in the "Printer Settings", even if it is a "logical" printer.
One thing to keep in mind is that the properties of the Phantom AutoCAD OLE/ADI virtual printer cannot be modified, and it cannot be deleted at will, otherwise, it will affect the output of raster graphics and OLE objects, and even cause a system crash.
31
Can batch printing be achieved?
Answer: Method 1: First output the graphics to a PLT file, and then use a batch file under DOS to print the PLT files in the specified directory in batches.
Method 2: R14 has a special external function, which can output multiple graphic files to one or more printers or plotters according to different printing configuration files, so as to achieve the purpose of batch output. These two methods are more flexible, have fewer opportunities for errors, and are more efficient. Select Batch Plot Utility in the AutoCAD program group.
32
AutoCAD graphics pasted into a Word document, the printed lines are too thin
Answer: After pasting and pasting AutoCAD graphics into MS Word documents, everything seems to be relatively smooth. But when the document is printed out, the lines of those AutoCAD graphics become very thin, and the effect is really not good. We provide users with the following solutions:
(1) Use the PostScript print driver in AutoCAD to configure a PostScript printer.
(2) If the background color of AutoCAD is different from that of MS Word, for example, the default background color of R14 is black, then you need to change the background color of AutoCAD to be the same as that of MS Word.
(3) Run the PLOT command and choose to export the graph to a file. Set the width of the pen in the Brush Assignment dialog.
(4) Start a new graph and import this .eps file with the PSIN command.
(5) Then paste the graphic into MS Word. Another method is to convert the line into a PLINE line in AutoCAD, set the width and then copy and paste it into WORD.
33
Why some graphics can be displayed but not printed?
A: This will happen if the drawing is drawn on layers automatically generated by AutoCAD (DEFPOINTS, ASHADE, etc.). Drawing solids on these layers should be avoided.
