Learn AutoCAD with our Free Tutorials
Welcome to CADTutor
CADTutor provides the best free tutorials and articles for AutoCAD, 3ds Max and associated applications along with a friendly community forum. If you need to learn AutoCAD, or you want to be more productive, you're in the right place. See our tip of the day to start learning right now!
Free Tutorials and More…
The Tutorials section provides over 100 original tutorials for AutoCAD, 3ds Max and other design applications. Michael’s Corner is an archive of productivity articles that brings you the best AutoCAD tips and tricks. Our Forum is a lively community where AutoCAD users can ask questions and get answers. The Downloads area provides free AutoCAD blocks, free AutoLISP routines and free images.
Tutorials of the Moment
Recently viewed tutorials
-
Stage 5: Create Houses, Roadlines and Fences
Format: Text/Image
Last visited: 2 minutes ago
-
Entering Survey Data using AutoCAD
Format: Text/Image
Last visited: 2 minutes ago
-
Units and Scales
Format: Text/Image
Last visited: 2 minutes ago
-
All About Shadows
Format: Text/Image
Last visited: 3 minutes ago
-
Drawing Objects
Format: Text/Image
Last visited: 5 minutes ago
-
AutoCAD 2010: Ribbon Basics
Format: Video
Last visited: 5 minutes ago
CADTutor Tutorials
Our tutorials are comprehensive but straightforward introductions to AutoCAD and related software. They are designed to help beginners get to grips with design workflows as quickly as possible. There are over 100 to choose from, some text/image based and others in video format. Whatever stage you are at in your learning, you should find a tutorial to help.
Forum Latest
Currently Active Topics
ISOLATE-UNISOLATE OBJECT THROUGH LAYISO-LAYUNISO
by jim78b
0 replies
Last post: 23 minutes ago
Autocad Software
by Emboss 2014
3 replies
Last post: 23 minutes ago
Move text to nearest object
by pmadhwal7
9 replies
Last post: 1 hour ago
Longest section in Polyline
by mousho
3 replies
Last post: 2 hours ago
Create annotative text by fence
by RBrigido
3 replies
Last post: 2 hours ago
Vector PDF Reference Converted to Raster Image When Plotting
by Mike_Taylor
2 replies
Last post: 3 hours ago
This Week's Hot Topics
Is there a way to simplify the "SSGET / SSNAME", perhaps with more modern commands?
by duke
12 replies
Viewed: 521 times
Is it possible to touch 2 or 3 points of a poly with more than 30 vertices, and have it draw a poly on top of the original poly?
by duke
12 replies
Viewed: 393 times
is it possible, through a code, to obtain the 4 coordinates of an image inserted in a drawing within Autocad?
by duke
11 replies
Viewed: 628 times
Move text to nearest object
by pmadhwal7
9 replies
Viewed: 344 times
Properties window didn’t show the steel length or depth info. In AutoCad 3D
by Emboss 2014
9 replies
Viewed: 202 times
Connect welding corner in 3D AutoCad.
by Emboss 2014
8 replies
Viewed: 215 times
CADTutor Forums
Our forum is a vibrant community of experts and beginners. The main focus is helping beginners get to grips with AutoCAD and to help more advanced users become more productive. The AutoLISP forum is one of the busiest out there, providing expert advice for busy professionals.
AutoCAD Productivity
Possible Solutions to the Disappearing Drawing
From: AutoCAD Productivity Articles #142
Originally published: October 2015
Many of my customers encounter a situation where the drawing disappears when they change the view or use Zoom Extents. Here are a few of my suggestions that I'm beginning to include in all my training sessions:
Purge and Audit a drawing you inherit or haven't worked on in a while. In the Purge command, if the two boxes under Unnamed Objects are ‘live’, check them both.
Save the current layer condition as a layer state, then turn On and Thaw all layers. Objects that are on layers that are Off are still ‘seen’ when you Zoom Extents. Saving the layer state will give a fallback position, just in case.
Set the QTEXT (Quick Text) feature to ON, then Regen the drawing. Turning on Qtext will replace all text objects with boxes and may make the dots around the perimeter of the screen easier to see. This feature was used extensively in the early days of pen plotters when it just took too long — albeit very entertaining over a lunch hour — to plot drawings with a lot of text. Instead of pppllloootttiiinnnggg out each letter, it just drew a quick 4-sided bounding box around the text. (Set QTEXT back to OFF when you're finished.)
Set PDMODE to 35 to display Points in the Circle-X format. All my furniture/facilities customers have drawings with Point objects on the insertion points and other vital locations on their furniture. Setting the PDMODE — Point Display Mode — to 35 makes any floating Point object visible. (Set PDMODE back to 0 to go back to the default condition of dots.)
After all's said and done, hopefully you will see the misbehaving object that's keeping your drawing from displaying as you expected. At that point, you can either move those objects back among their peers… or simply delete 'em. That's your call, but at least now you know what that problem was!
See all the articles published in October 2015
Michael's Corner
Between 2003 and 2016, Michael Beall (and one or two guests) wrote almost 600 articles for CADTutor. The focus of these articles is AutoCAD productivity, and although some of them are now more than a few years old, most remain relevant to current versions of AutoCAD. The article above is just one example. Check out Michael's Corner for a full listing.
Image of the Week
Gallery of Work
Over the years, our forum members have contributed hundreds of images, showcasing their amazing work. The images above are just a small selection that demonstrate the wide range of project types our community is involved with. Take a look at our gallery to see all the images published in the last 12 months.
Tip of the Day
Repeat for Efficiency
Sometimes, you may find yourself having to use the same command repeatedly. This can be a pain, unless you are aware that the previous command can always be repeated by hitting the Enter key on the keyboard or by using the right-click mouse button and selecting the name of the command you just used. Both these methods are more efficient than repeatedly finding a command on a toolbar or from a pull-down menu.
What's more annoying than having to repeat a single command (and more common) is having to repeat a sequence of maybe two or three commands. Obviously, you can't use the "Enter to repeat" trick. However, the right-click menu has another option that can help in these situations. Below the name of the last command used, is a menu option that says
. If you select this option, you will see a list of all the commands used in the current drawing session, with the most recently used at the top.Using this method, you can repeat any sequence of commands without having to return to a toolbar or pull-down menu.
Note: This function is controlled by the inputhistorymode variable.
Missed a Tip?
Did you miss yesterday's tip? Maybe you forgot to drop by or maybe you don't visit over the weekend. If so, you can now see all the tips published during the past week. Also, if you have a tip you'd like to share with us, you can post it on our forum and if we like it, we'll publish it here.