Datasheet
4. Don’t close the Options dialog box yet.
5. If you want the lines of your crosshair cursor to extend completely
across the screen, go to the lower-left corner of the Display tab (the
lower-right corner for LT), and move the slider to change the
Crosshair Size setting to 100.
6. Click OK to apply any remaining changes and close the Options dia-
log box.
Your crosshair lines now extend across the drawing area.
TIP
If you choose a color other than black as the drawing area background
color, the color of the crosshair cursor remains the same as it was. To change
the crosshair color, in the Drawing Window Colors dialog box, go to the Inter-
face Element list box, and select Crosshairs. Then, select a color from the Color
drop-down list.
Working in the Command Window
Just below the drawing area is the Command window. This window is separate
from the drawing area and behaves like a Windows window—that is, you can
drag it to a different place on the screen and resize it, although I don’t recom-
mend you do this at first. If you currently have fewer than three lines of text in
the window, you’ll need to increase the window’s vertical size. To do so, move the
cursor to the horizontal boundary between the drawing area and the Command
window until it changes to an up-and-down arrow broken by two parallel hori-
zontal lines.
Hold down the left mouse button, drag the cursor up by approximately the
amount that one or two lines of text would take up, and then release the mouse
button. You should see more lines of text, but you might have to try this a couple
of times to display exactly three lines. A horizontal line will separate the top two
lines of text from the bottom line of text. When you close the program, AutoCAD
will save the new settings; the next time you start AutoCAD, the command win-
dow will display three lines of text.
The Command window is where you give information to AutoCAD and where
AutoCAD prompts you for the next step in executing a command. It’s good prac-
tice to keep an eye on the Command window as you work on your drawing. Most
errors occur when you aren’t looking at it frequently. If the Dyn button on the
Chapter 1 • Getting to Know AutoCAD12
LT doesn’t have the
Screen menu, so the
option to turn it
off isn’t on LT’s
Display tab.
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