Datasheet

Drawing Efficiency
At the heart of a CAD system is the ability to create accurate geometry. Speed is always
secondary to accuracy, but it’s possible for one user to be much more efficient than
another in creating geometry while still maintaining accuracy. That efficiency isn’t merely
the result of being fast with a mouse and keyboard—it’s the result of planning strategies
for approaching each new object to be drawn. And, of course, you must be able to get
information from the drawing to check the accuracy.
The following suggestions may improve your speed and accuracy in drawing and
improve your ability to get information from a drawing quickly.
COMMAND-LINE VERSIONS OF COMMANDS
One technique for becoming more efficient with AutoCAD is to type aliases and commands
at the keyboard. If you can’t type, you may be out of luck; but when I watch keyboard jockeys
use AutoCAD, I see countless places where they save a few seconds here, a couple of seconds
there, and pretty soon it adds up to real time. But what happens if the command brings up a
dialog box? You have to wait for the dialog to display, grab your mouse, make some picks,
click OK, and get back to work.
It may be faster if you don’t have to deal with a dialog box, and many AutoCAD com-
mands have both a dialog-based version and a command-line version. When they do, you
can issue the command-line version by placing a minus sign in front of the command name
or its alias: for example, -AR or -ARRAY. This behavior is in AutoCAD to protect legacy applica-
tions written by users of past releases, but you may find it more efficient than toolbars, tool
palettes, or pull-down menus.
Knowing how to bring up a command-line version of a command is a godsend when you
write AutoLISP programs. You can check the sequence for creating layers, for example, by
typing -LA or -LAYER to avoid the dialog box and see the prompts.
Speaking of the LAYER command, let me use it as one example of efficiency. When I need
a new layer—say, one named newlayer—for something I’m about to draw, I almost always
type something like this: -la↵m↵newlayer↵. I just timed it: It took me six seconds. Newlayer is
now the current layer, and I’m drawing away. I did the same thing using the Layer Properties
Manager dialog box, and it took me 16 seconds. You may see that as saving only 10 seconds.
I see that as a 267 percent improvement in my efficiency.
This technique doesn’t suppress all dialog-based commands. If you want the command-
line version of the SAVE command, for example, you need to first set the variable FILEDIA to 0.
Then, typing SAVE (no minus sign needed) won’t display a dialog box, but will give you save
options at the command prompt.
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