AutoCAD TIPS

ZOOM

Ever zoomed extents in a drawing, specifically in model space, and your objects either seem to dissappear or become smaller instead of filling your work tab?

Besides objects that are on a frozen layer or one node that is way off the map, one thing to check is for wipeout and/or text mask boxes. These boxes are not visible unless you toggle the Image Frame.

VIEWRES

Ever had the problem of getting line types to show correctly in a viewport. You have a hidden line drawn in model space, but in paper space, through the viewport, you see a continuous line not a dashed hidden line. VIEWRES not only controls the appearance of circles, arcs, ellipses, and splines using short vectors but also controls how line types will show. Sets the resolution for objects in the current viewport

Command line: viewres

Do you want fast zooms [Yes/No] <Y>: Press ENTER (Fast Zoom is no longer a functioning option of this command and remains for script compatibility only.)

Enter circle zoom percent (1-20000) <current>: Enter an integer from 1 to 20,000 or press ENTER

(5) STEPS TO HELP PREVENT DWG GLITCHES

For all who have to work in/with "others" dwg files.

After trying to deal with glitches in working with and plotting of drawings from other offices and clients, we have a (5) step procedure that should be done before doing anything with the dwg file.

Do the following 5 steps:
1. save a copy of the original file to use
2. open the dwg file copy through the drawing recovery utility in AutoCAD (take note of any errors if indicated)
3. purge the drawing
4. wblock the entire drawing out to a different file name (you can change name back to original if needed after all steps completed)
5. open the new file created (wblocked file), you should not receive any proxy messages at this point if you had in step 1, note; if the "Show Proxy Information dialog box" feature is not on (box checked) you would not see any proxy messages and therefore not know if any 3rd party apps were tagged with the file. It is recommended to have this feature enabled.

While this may be a bit of up front work to have to do, it should help prevent possible glitches and lost productivity down the road.

By no means is this expected to be foolproof, but it is an effective approach. Especially with all the different releases being used today.

Also, once work is done on a drawing, doing these steps after-the-fact does not produce as effective results.

CREATE SMALLER FILE SIZE PDF

If you share your design files in .pdf format the files can be very large. Especially if you have raster graphics or large topo areas.

I have found that by publishing to a .dwf format (DWF6 ePlot) then opening the .dwf file in Design Review and print to a pdf the file size of the pdf will be drastically smaller than publishing to a pdf in AutoCAD