Ralph Grabowski - AutoCAD For Dummies 2023

AutoCAD For Dummies, 19th Edition

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Copyright 2022 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2022930466

ISBN 978-1-119-86876-7 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-86877-4 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-86878-1 (ebk)

1. Chapter 4
2. Chapter 8
3. Chapter 9
4. Chapter 10
5. Chapter 11
6. Chapter 19
7. Chapter 20
8. Chapter 24

1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18
19. Chapter 19
20. Chapter 20
21. Chapter 21
22. Chapter 22
23. Chapter 23
24. Chapter 24

Welcome to the wonderful world of AutoCAD and to the fame and fortune that awaits you as an AutoCAD user. (Would I lie to you?)

Believe it or not, AutoCAD is around 40 years old, having been born in December 1982, when most people thought that personal computers werent capable of industrial-strength tasks like CAD. The acronym stands for Computer-Aided Drafting, Computer-Aided Design, or both, depending on who you talk to. Whats equally surprising is that many of todays hotshot AutoCAD users, and most of the readers of this book, werent even born when the program first hit the street and when the grizzled old-timer writing these words began using it.

AutoCAD remains the king of the PC computer CAD hill by a tall margin, and, on top of that, is one of the longest-lived computer programs ever. Its conceivable that the long-term future of CAD may belong to special-purpose, 3D, web-connected software such as the Autodesk Fusion and Forge programs. Until then, AutoCADs DWG file format is the de facto standard, and a lot of design software works with that file format. For the foreseeable future, AutoCAD is where the action in CAD will be.

You may have heard that AutoCAD is complex and therefore difficult to learn and use. Yes, the user interface includes about 1,300 icons. But it has been my observation that the easier any software is to learn and use, the sooner you bump up against its limitations. A simple car with no accelerator, one forward gear, no steering, and no brakes would be easy to use until you reach a hill, a curve, or a stop sign, or you need to back out of a parking space.

Yes, AutoCAD is complex, but thats the secret to its success. Some claim that few people use more than 10 percent of AutoCADs capabilities. Closer analysis reveals that most people use the same basic 5 percent and everyone else uses a different 5 percent after that. The trick is to find your 5 percent, the sweet spot that suits your particular discipline. If you follow my advice, I think you'll find that using AutoCAD is as simple and intuitive as driving a car.

It should be perfectly clear that if your career path has put you in a position where you need to know how to use AutoCAD, youre no dummy!

Unlike many other For Dummies books, this one often tells you to consult the official software documentation. AutoCAD is just too big and powerful for a single book to attempt to describe it completely. The book that ultimately covers every AutoCAD topic would need a forklift to move it. Literally. Autodesk stopped shipping paper instruction manuals with the software somewhere around 1995, when the full documentation package grew to about a dozen volumes and more than 30 pounds.

In AutoCAD For Dummies, I occasionally mention differences from previous releases so that everyone gains some context and so that upgraders can more readily know what has changed; plus, youre bound to encounter a few of the billions and billions of drawings created using methods that predominated in older releases of the software. I mention the important differences between AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT. In particular, AutoCAD LT has no programming language and has extremely limited support for parametrics (see ).