Datasheet

Below the drawing area is the Command window.
When you enter commands, rather than using the menus or buttons, the
Command window is where you tell the program what to do and where the pro-
gram tells you what’s happening. It’s an important area, and you’ll need to learn
how it works in detail. Two lines of text should be visible. You’ll learn how to
increase the number of visible lines later in this chapter in the section “Working
in the Command Window.”
Below the Command window is the status bar.
On the left end of the status bar, you’ll see a coordinate readout window. In
the middle are 10 readout buttons (LT has only 9) that indicate various drawing
modes. It’s important to learn about the coordinate system and most of these
drawing aids (Snap, Grid, Ortho, and Osnap) early on as you learn to draw in
AutoCAD or LT. They will help you create neat and accurate drawings. Polar and
Otrack are advanced drawing tools and will be introduced in Chapter 5. Ducs
stands for Dynamic User Coordinate System; it’s used in 3D drawings. Dyn is an
off/on toggle that activates or suppresses the dynamic display of information
next to the crosshair cursor when it’s in the drawing area. For now, keep it in
the off (unpushed) mode. Lwt (which stands for lineweight) will be discussed in
Chapter 14. The Model button is an advanced aid that I’ll cover in Chapter 13. At
the far right of the status bar are tools for controlling the appearance of annota-
tion objects in AutoCAD. The padlock icon controls which types of toolbars and
windows are locked in their current positions on the screen. Leave it in the
unlocked mode for now.
This has been a quick introduction to the various parts of the graphics win-
dow. I didn’t mention a couple of items that might be visible on your screen. You
might have scroll bars below and to the right of the drawing area; although these
can be useful, they can take up precious space in the drawing area. They won’t be
of any use while working your way through this book, so I suggest you remove
them for now.
To temporarily remove these features, follow these steps:
1. Choose Tools
➣ Options to open the Options dialog box (shown in
Figure 1.6). It has 10 tabs (LT has only 8) across the top that act like
tabs on file folders.
Introducing the AutoCAD Graphics Window 9
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