Datasheet
28
CHAPTER 1 GETTING FAMILIAR WITH AUTOCAD
2. Move the cursor over the rectangle that immediately surrounds your rectangle and circle
drawing, as shown in Figure 1.10.
3. Click the highlighted rectangle, and then press the Delete key. Your drawing disappears.
4. Click the Model tab to return to model space. You see that the objects you drew are still there.
5. Click the Undo tool in the Standard toolbar twice to return to the Layout1 tab and undo your
deletion of the outer rectangle. The view of the rectangle and circle return.
6. Click the Model tab to return to the original drawing area.
In step 3, your entire drawing disappeared when you deleted the outer rectangle. This is because
that rectangle is really a viewport into the drawing you created in the Model tab. When you are in
a layout tab, a viewport acts like a window into your drawing. By default, AutoCAD creates a single
viewport to show your drawing, but you can have multiple viewports of various sizes, each dis-
playing different parts of your drawing. When you deleted that viewport, you essentially closed
your view into your drawing in the Model tab, so your rectangle and circle disappeared from view.
They didn’t really go anywhere. It’s just that your view of them was deleted.
You might have also noticed that a layout tab displays a white area over a gray background. This
white area represents the area of the paper onto which your drawing will be printed.
The white area also shows a dashed line close to its edge. This dashed line represents the print-
able area of your paper. Both the paper area and dashed line are determined by the current default
printer connected to your computer.
If you have a printer that accepts paper of different sizes, you can select a different sheet size,
and the new sheet size will be reflected in the white area shown in the layout tab. You’ll learn how
to control sheet sizes in the chapter on printing.
As you might guess, you use the layout tabs to lay out your drawing for printing. You can print
from the Model tab if you like, but you have much more control over your printer output from a
layout tab.
Understanding How Command Options Work
Nearly every AutoCAD command offers a set of options that are shown in the Command window
prompt. These options let you alter the behavior of a command to suit your current drawing. To
help demonstrate how command options work, and to get a feel for the drawing process in general,
you’ll draw an arc and then place it exactly in the inside corner of the rectangle.
1. Click the Arc tool in the Draw toolbar. The prompt Specify start point of arc or
[Center]: appears, and the cursor changes to Point Selection mode.
If you examine this Specify start point of arc or [Center]: prompt, you’ll see the
start point contains two options. The default option is stated in the main part of the prompt:
Specify start point. If other options are available, they appear within brackets, as in the
[Center] option that appears in the Arc Command prompt. This [Center]option tells you
that you can also start your arc by selecting a center point instead of a start point. If multiple
options are available, they appear within the brackets and are separated by forward slashes (/).
The default is the option AutoCAD assumes you intend to use unless you tell it otherwise.
2. Type C ↵ to select the Center option. The prompt Specify center point of arc: appears.
Notice that you only had to type the C and not the entire word Center.
0878book.fm Page 28 Wednesday, March 15, 2006 8:31 PM