Datasheet
tAking A guiDED tour
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7
The drawing area occupies most of the screen. Everything you draw appears in this area. As
you move your mouse around, crosshairs appear to move within the drawing area. This is the
drawing cursor that lets you point to locations in the drawing area. You’ll get your first chance
to work with the drawing area later in the section “Picking Points in the Drawing Area.” You’ll
learn more about the UCS icon in a moment (see the section “Using the UCS Icon”).
Just below the drawing area in the lower-right corner are the Model and Layout tabs. These
tabs enable you to quickly switch between different types of views called the model and layout
views. You’ll get to see firsthand how these work in a section called “Working with AutoCAD”
later in this chapter.
The Command window, located just below the drawing area, gives you feedback about
AutoCAD’s commands as you use them. You can move and resize this window just as you move
and resize other display components. By default, the Command window is in its docked posi-
tion, as shown in Figure 1.4. I’ll elaborate on the Command window in the section “Working in
the Command Window” later in this chapter.
Below the Command window is the status bar (also shown in Figure 1.4). The status bar
gives you information at a glance about the state of the drawing. For example, the coordinate
readout at the far left of the status bar tells you the location of your cursor. The tools in the sta-
tus bar offer aids to the drafting process.
Using the Application Menu
The Application menu offers tools to help you manage your AutoCAD files. It is basically
the File pull-down menu from previous versions of AutoCAD. Try it out to see how it works
firsthand:
1. Click the Application menu icon. A list of options appears.
Figure 1.3
The Quick Access
toolbar, featuring
basic Windows
file-handling func-
tions, appears
above the Ribbon.
Ribbon panel title bars
Quick Access toolbar InfoCenter
Ribbon tabs
Ribbon panels
Figure 1.4
The Command
window and the
status bar
Coordinate readout
UCS icon
Command window
Status bar
Command line
Model and Layout tabs
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