Datasheet
10 Chapter 1: Getting Familiar with AutoCAD
Click the triangular arrow
to open the flyout menu.
You might also notice that some of the tools have triangular arrows next to them.
You can click these arrows to open flyout menus that contain options related to the tool
with which they are associated. For example, you can click the triangle next to the Circle
tool to open a flyout that offers different ways to draw a circle (Figure 1.10). You’ll get a
chance to use these features in Chapter 3.
Switching to Floating Ribbon Panels
If you find that you use one particular Ribbon panel a lot, you can “tear off” the panel
and have it available as a floating Ribbon panel. To do this, click and drag the panel title
bar toward the drawing area. The panel’s appearance changes slightly to offer some con-
trols (see Figure 1.11). These controls disappear when you are not pointing inside the
panel, but they reappear when you hover over the panel with your cursor.
Tooltips appear when you hover over the controls, and they describe what each control
does. The Toggle Orientation control is a little misleading because it only controls the
display of the title bar.
Using the Application Menu
The AutoCAD Application menu provides a familiar means of finding file- and print-
related commands. You can open the Application menu by clicking the AutoCAD icon
in the upper-left corner of the AutoCAD window (shown earlier in Figure 1.5).
In the Application menu, you’ll see many of the standard Windows menu options,
such as Open, Save, Save As, and Print, as well as a few that are specific to AutoCAD.
Many of the options show arrowheads that indicate a cascading menu. Open the
Application menu, for example, and click the arrowhead to the right of the Export
option. You’ll see a list of options that are related to export-
ing AutoCAD drawings.
As mentioned earlier, you can view a list of recently
opened drawing or currently opened drawings by clicking
either of the two tools at the top of the Application menu
(Figure 1.12).
Figure 1.10
Opening a flyout
Figure 1.11
A Ribbon panel in
its floating appear-
ance, showing
its controls
Toggle orientation
Return panels
to ribbon
Figure 1.12
The Recent docu-
ments and Open
documents tools at
the top of the Appli-
cation menu
Open documents
Recent documents
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