AutoCAD 2018 and AutoCAD LT 2018 Preview Guide Stay at the forefront of the design world with the new features in Autodesk® AutoCAD® 2018 software. Create and share precise drawings with innovative productivity tools. Save time and minimize frustration with simple tools to fix broken paths for externally referenced files. Use the SHX text recognition tool to quickly convert imported PDF geometry to text objects. See significant improvements in 3D navigation when zooming and panning.
User interaction ........................................................................................................................................ 3 File navigation dialog box .................................................................................................................. 3 Drafting Settings dialog box ............................................................................................................. 4 Select Color dialog box ...............................................
User interaction The AutoCAD 2018 release continues to improve the way you interact with AutoCAD. File navigation dialog box The file navigation dialog boxes for operations such as Open, Save, Attach and many others now remember the sort order of the column. If, for example, you sort by file size or reverse sort by file name, the next time you access that dialog box it will automatically display files using that same sort order. * Functionality also included in the AutoCAD 2017.
Drafting Settings dialog box The Drafting Settings dialog can be resized in AutoCAD 2018. Access Drafting Settings from a variety of locations including the DSETTINGS command. Select Color dialog box The True Color tab in the Select Color dialog box now supports comma separated entry of RGB color values. * Functionality also included in the AutoCAD 2017.
Quick Access Toolbar The Layer Control option is now part of the Quick Access Toolbar menu. Although it is turned off by default, you can now easily set it to display in the Quick Access Toolbar along with other frequently used tools. Status bar The status bar icon for the System Variable Monitor tool is displayed when system variables deviate from their preferred values.
Rubber‐band line color A rubber-band line is a line that stretches dynamically within the drawing area as you move the cursor between two points. For example, if you move or copy an object by picking the basepoint and second point, a rubber-band line is temporarily displayed until you pick the second point. In AutoCAD 2018, the rubber-band line is added to the long list of interface elements for which you can control the color.
Off‐screen selection* In AutoCAD 2018, you can begin a selection window in one part of your drawing and then pan and zoom to another part while maintaining selection of the off-screen objects! You can control the behavior of off-screen selection using the SELECTIONOFFSCREEN system variable. Linetype gap selection enhancements* Linetype gap behavior is enhanced to support complex and DGN linetypes. In addition, this feature works with all objects, such as polylines with width, and splines.
Documentation PDF enhancements* PDF files are the most common file format used when exchanging design information between designers, contractors, clients, and others. AutoCAD 2017 introduced the ability to import PDF files. The PDFIMPORT command imports PDF data into AutoCAD as 2D geometry, TrueType text, and images.
use the best matching font ensures AutoCAD compares the text to all of the selected fonts, and chooses the best one. After comparing the geometry to the SHX fonts, the geometry that matches is automatically replaced with one or more Mtext objects. A message box will display the results.
Combine Text* The Combine Text tool enables you to combine many individual text objects into one multi-line text object. This can be particularly useful after recognizing and converting SHX text from an imported PDF file. You can access the Combine Text tool (TXT2MTXT command) from the Insert ribbon tab. The following are enhancements to the TXT2MTXT command: You can select Mtext objects in addition to text objects.
Collaboration External references Enhancements in the AutoCAD 2018 release help reduce the problems created by broken reference paths. When you attach an external file to an AutoCAD drawing, the default path type is now set to Relative path instead of Full path. If Relative path isn’t your preferred path type, you can use the new REFPATHTYPE system variable to modify the default reference path type. Set the value to 0 for No path, 1 for Relative path, or 2 for Full path.
If the current drawing includes relative references and you save it to a different location, you are prompted to update the relative paths. The contextual menu of the External References palette offers two new options when you right-click on a reference file that is not found. * Functionality also included in the AutoCAD 2017.
Select New Path allows you to browse to a new location for a missing reference file (fix one), and then provides you with an option to apply the same new location for other missing references (fix all). Find and Replace locates all references that use a specified path from all the references that you selected (multiple selection), and replaces all occurrences of that path with a new path that you specify.
nested references, orphaned references now display in the proper tree view location, even when missing. * Functionality also included in the AutoCAD 2017.
The Open option is no longer disabled when you right-click on an unloaded reference in the External References palette, enabling you to quickly open unloaded reference files. If you rename an unloaded reference in the External References palette, it no longer automatically reloads. It remains unloaded until you intentionally reload it.
When opening a drawing with external references that aren’t found, the message terminology has been changed for clarity. It now says “Number of references that are Not Found” instead of “Number of missing reference files”. Share Design View enhancements Share Design View enables you to easily publish views of drawings to the cloud to facilitate collaboration with stakeholders, while also protecting your DWGTM files.
The design views are posted online with a link you can share with collaborators. You can easily access your recent uploads from the A360 viewer Home page. By default, uploads are only available for 30 days. Now, however, you can extend a design view for an additional 30 days at any time. In addition to sharing your design views, you can post, review, and resolve comments. * Functionality also included in the AutoCAD 2017.
Technology and performance updates AutoCAD 2018 continues to offer improvements in performance and technology. DWG file format The DWG format has been updated to provide improvements in the efficiency of open and save operations, especially for drawings that contain many annotative objects and viewports. Additionally, 3D solid and surface creation is now using the newest geometric modeler which has improved security and stability. Save performance Save performance is improved in AutoCAD 2018.
You can access the Graphics Performance dialog box from the Hardware Acceleration tool on the status bar. Additional improvements include better performance with low-end devices and high resolution displays, as well as for regen and redraw of hatch patterns. 3D navigation performance* (Not available in AutoCAD LT) AutoCAD 2018 offers significant improvements when using zoom, pan, and 3D orbit operations in commonly used visual styles.
In the Autodesk App Store you’ll find a variety of valuable tools as they are updated to support the AutoCAD 2018 file format. Popular apps include the SketchUp Import tool which was removed from the Add-ins ribbon tab in AutoCAD 2018. Autodesk Seek As of January 2017, Autodesk Seek operations have been transferred to BIMobject AB. BIMobject is an online source for product information that is directly accessible from your Autodesk software.
* Functionality also included in the AutoCAD 2017.
