Datasheet

tAking A guiDED tour

General Tool Names vs. Tool Tip Names

Since the tool tip names of tools with ﬂyouts can change, describing them by name can be a bit

problematic.―The name may have changed based on the last tool you used from a ﬂyout. For this

reason, if a tool has a ﬂyout, I’ll refer to it by a general name that is related to the set of tools in a ﬂyout

rather than by the tool tip name. For example, I’ll call the circle icon tool the Circle tool rather than

the Center, Radius tool. Likewise, I’ll refer to the magnifying glass icon in the View tab’s Navigate

panel as the Zoom tool instead of the Extents tool.

Zoom Tool

Tools vs. the Keyboard

Throughout this book, you’ll be told to select tools from the Ribbon panels to invoke commands. For

new and experienced users alike, the Ribbon panels offer an easy-to-remember method for access-

ing commands. If you’re an experienced AutoCAD user, you can type commands directly from the

keyboard. Most of the keyboard commands you know and love still work as they did before.

Another method for accessing commands is to use accelerator keys, which are special keystrokes

that open and activate drop-down menu options. You may have noticed that the commands in the

menu bar and the items in the drop-down menus all have an underlined character. By pressing the

Alt key followed by the key corresponding to the underlined character, you activate that command

or option without having to engage the mouse. For example, to choose Open from the Application

menu, press Alt, then F, and then ﬁnally O (Alt+F+O).

Many tools and commands have aliases. Aliases are one-, two-, or three-letter abbreviations of a

command name. As you become more proﬁcient with AutoCAD, you may ﬁnd these aliases helpful.

As you work through this book, the shortcuts will be identiﬁed for your reference.

Finally, if you’re feeling adventurous, you can create your own aliases and keyboard for executing

commands by adding them to the AutoCAD support ﬁles. Chapter 28 discusses how to customize

menus, Ribbon panels, toolbars, and keyboard shortcuts.

Picking Points in the Drawing Area

Now that you’ve seen the general layout of AutoCAD, take a look at the coordinate readout and

the drawing cursor to get a sense of how the parts of the AutoCAD screen work together:

1. Move the cursor around in the drawing area. As you move it, notice how the coordinate

readout changes to tell you the cursor’s location. It shows the coordinates in an X, Y, Z

format.

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