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CHAPTER 1 EXPLORING THE AUTOCAD AND AUTOCAD LT INTERFACE
As you can see from this exercise, you have a wide range of options for viewing your drawings,
just by using a few buttons. These buttons are all you need to control the display of 2D drawings.
Saving a File as You Work
It’s a good idea to save your file periodically as you work on it. As with any Windows program, you
can save it under its original name (choose File  Save) or under a different name (choose File 
Save As), thereby creating a new file.
By default, AutoCAD automatically saves your work at 10-minute intervals under a name that
is a combination of the current filename plus a number and that ends with the .sv$ filename exten-
sion; this is known as the Automatic Save feature. Using settings in the Options dialog box or system
variables, you can change the name of the autosaved file and control the time between autosaves.
See Chapter 3 for details.
TIP By default, in Windows XP, the Automatic Save file is stored in C:\Documents and Settings\
User Name\Local Settings\Temp\. You can find the exact location for your system by typing
Savefilepathø at the Command prompt. This file location is often set as a hidden folder, so you may
need to set up Windows Explorer to display hidden folders before you can get to the Automatic Save
file. See Appendix A for information on how to do this.
Making Changes
You’ll frequently make changes to your drawings. One of AutoCAD’s primary advantages is the
ease with which you can make changes. The following exercise shows you a typical sequence of
operations involved in changing a drawing:
1. Use the File  Save As menu option to save the current Clip.dwg file under the name
MyFirst. For convenience, you can save your files in the My Documents folder.
2. From the 2D Draw control panel, click the Erase tool (the one with a pencil eraser touching
paper). This activates the Erase command. You can also choose Modify  Erase from the
drop-down menu.
Notice that the cursor has turned into a small square; this square is called the pickbox. You
also see Select objects: in the Command window and the dynamic input display. This
message helps remind new users what to do.
3. Move the pickbox over the drawing, placing it on various parts of the clip. Don’t click anything
yet. Notice that as you hover over objects with the pickbox, they’re highlighted. This helps you
see the objects the pickbox is likely to select, should you click the left mouse button.
4. Place the pickbox on the crosshatch pattern of the clip (see Figure 1.13), and click. The cross-
hatch changes in appearance from a dark highlight to a light highlight. The pickbox and the
Select objects: prompt remain, indicating that you can continue to select objects.
5. Press ↵. The crosshatch disappears. You’ve just erased a part of the drawing.
In this exercise, you first issued the Erase command, and then you selected an object by using a
pickbox to click it. The pickbox tells you that you must select items on the screen, and it shows you
what you’re about to select by highlighting objects as you hover over them. Once you’ve clicked an
object or a set of objects, press ↵ to move on to the next step. This sequence of steps is common to
many of the commands you’ll work with in AutoCAD.
TIP You can also click an object or a set of objects and then press the Delete key without using the
Erase tool.
3738x.book Page 22 Monday, June 25, 2007 11:37 PM