AutoCAD for Windows Express

What is AutoCAD? AutoCAD is the world's most popular computer-aided drafting package for the personal computer (PC). It is a fully functional 2D and 3D CAD program. Full 3D wire frame representation was incorporated in the program with the launch of Release 10 in 1988. Release 11 brought additional 3D facilities in­ cluding some solid modelling capabilities. These capabilities were enhanced with Release 12 of the program for DOS and Windows. Its popularity has made AutoCAD the de facto industry standard for PC-CAD with a host of other program developers providing application software conforming to the AutoCAD format. As a fully functional drafting program, AutoCAD can achieve anything that can be drawn on a drawing board. The main benefits of CAD come more from being able to edit and exchange drawing information rapidly rather than simply replacing the drawing board. Starting to use AutoCAD is a difficult step as it requires a certain amount of new skill development. Once you have made the commitment to learn how to use the program and implement it in your everyday work the benefits will soon accrue. You will quickly discover that there are many things that you can do with AutoCAD that you could never do with a drawing board. With AutoCAD your drawings become more than just black lines on a white sheet of paper. The AutoCAD drawing is a database of information.

1 Introduction.- What is AutoCAD?.- The aims of the AutoCAD Express.- The Express route through AutoCAD.- Conventions used in the AutoCAD Express.- RETURN or ENTER?.- Presentation of user-AutoCAD dialogue.- Control keys.- Menus.- Other conventions.- The Windows environment.- Program Manager.- Window control.- Window cleaning.- Windows hot-keys.- 2 Starting Autocad.- Preparation.- Starting AutoCAD for DOS.- The AutoCAD for Windows icon.- Creating a drawing.- The drawing window.- The File pull-down menu.- Drawing identification.- AutoCAD’s menus.- Menu preferences.- How about a bit of doodling?.- The tool box.- Setting up the drawing environment.- Drawing size.- Drawing lines.- AutoCAD’s command memory.- Linetypes and scales and colors.- Saving the drawing.- Adding some text.- HELP!.- Help — DOS Extender version.- Context sensitive help.- Finishing up.- A note on file security.- Summary.- 3 Cursor and Display Control.- General.- Layers.- Cursor location.- Rulers, grids and snapping.- Two dimensional coordinate notation.- Digital setsquares.- Snapping to objects.- ZOOM and PAN.- Keyboard toggles and transparent commands.- Finish for the time being.- Summary.- 4 Drawing and Editing.- General.- Rubbing out and OOPS.- Entity selection modes.- Erasing some lines.- Window selection.- OOPS! I didn’t mean to rub that out.- Crossing windows and polygons.- The balloon drawing environment.- Creating circles, arcs and ellipses.- Circles.- Many ways to draw an ARC.- Rectangles and Ellipses.- Adding text.- Text styles.- Centered text.- Wide lines.- Aerial view.- Solid objects.- Shading with patterns.- Summary.- 5 Constructive Editing.- General.- Drawing the arch.- Editing a polyline with PEDIT.- Moving objects.- Rotating objects.- Copying.- Altering objects’ characteristics.- Enlarging objects.- Stretching objects into shape.- Mirror image.- Multiple copies using ARRAY.- Rectangular arrays.- Circular arrays.- Non orthogonal rectangular arrays.- Finishing up.- Summary.- 6 Super-Entities.- General.- Making a block.- Inserting blocks.- Global blocks.- Making a library of useful symbols.- The kitchen sink.- Coloured blocks.- Editing a block.- Assigning text information to blocks.- Defining an attribute.- Drawing the kitchen.- Assembling the fitted kitchen.- Editing attributes.- A simple bill of materials.- Hints on using blocks.- AutoCAD’s inquiry commands.- Summary.- 7 Advanced Drawing and Dimensioning.- General.- Drawing a gland.- Point and Divide.- Trimming entities.- Dimensioning.- Dimension style.- Editing dimensions.- Standard dimension variable settings.- Drawing a pentagon.- Wrapping up dimensions.- Summary.- 8 Adding Depth to Your Drawings with 3D CAD.- General.- Isometric projection.- The Express State Building in 2.5 dimensions.- Views and more views.- Multiple views.- Model space and paper space.- The Pyramids of Giza in glorious 3D.- Making the faces solid.- Define your own coordinate system.- The all seeing eye.- A dynamic viewpoint on visualisation.- Getting things in perspective.- AutoCAD’s 3D box of tricks.- Meshes.- Generated surfaces.- 3D objects.- AME.- Summary.- 9 The Hardcopy — Printing and Plotting.- General.- Printing and plotting.- Printers.- Plotters.- Plotting the GLAND drawing.- Altering the plot parameters.- Scales and preview.- Saving a VIEW.- Multicolored plotting.- Plotting a view.- Postscript output.- Plotting to a file.- Plotting multiple viewports in paper space.- A simple title block for EXP-GIZA.- Paper space.- Manipulating metaviews.- Cross referencing drawing files.- Dependent blocks.- A note on XREF files.- Printing from Windows.- Windows system printer.- The softcopy.- Safety first.- Copying to other Windows applications.- Object linking and embedding.- Summary.- Appendix A: Configuration.- General.- The DOS environment.- Configuring AutoCAD.- Altering devices.- Summary.- Appendix B: Linetypes and Hatch Patterns.- General.- Linetype definition.- Hatch pattern defintiion.- Summary.