Discover the process of configuring AutoCAD, from launching the program to setting up a personalized user interface. Learn how to customize features such as the command prompt, menu bar, display configuration, color settings, and system variables for an optimal drafting experience.
Key Insights
- The AutoCAD program offers two distinct environments, 'create' for designing drawings, and 'learn', which provides online training videos produced by Autodesk.
- Personalizing the AutoCAD user interface involves several steps including modifying the command prompt, integrating the menu bar, and adjusting the display configuration between dark and light settings.
- Other key configuration changes include altering color settings across different environments, adjusting the crosshairs, setting up the fade control for X-Ref files, establishing the default printer, and ensuring consistent insertion scale factors.
Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.
Let's begin configuring AutoCAD. Of course, you know that when we first launched the program, we are on the new tab page. And just to let you know, there are two different environments.
This is the create environment, where we actually go in to create drawings. If I click on learn down here, these are some online training videos that are provided by Autodesk. It's always fun to look at the new features overview.
But I'm going to go back to the create, and I'm going to start a drawing, and I'm going to use a template. And the template file we're going to begin with will be the ACAD.DWT file, the AutoCAD drawing template file. Now, this is how AutoCAD looks when I'm initially launching it, and I want to go ahead and start customizing it to look my way.
Now, this is the standard AutoCAD user interface. You can see that right down here is my command prompt. What I can always do is I can take the command prompt, and you can see that I'm picking on this bar over here, and pull it to the top.
I can also pull it back down and undock it here. So, I tend to prefer having mine on the top. You can either pop it here or at another top bar.
What I'd like to do too is to get the menu bar in. So, I'm going to go ahead and type MENU BAR, and I'm going to hit ENTER, and I will give it a variable of one. So, you can see now I have my menu bar at the top.
A lot of people who've been using AutoCAD a long time rely on the menu bar, and it's a good thing to have. You'll also notice that as we're working on the command prompt, that parts of it will auto shade. Now, we want to start working on the configuration.
I'm going to go to the big A, and I'm going to go to options. I have my display configuration. This is the dark configuration.
If I were to say the light configuration and to apply it, you'll see how it changes the interface. So, it's pretty much up to you if you prefer having the white background or the dark background. I'm going to go back to options, and for right now, I'm going to make mine the dark environment.
I now have colors, and these are going to be the colors of the different environments. The 2D model space is this shade of gray. I can either keep it or go to black.
It's your call. The sheet layout—I tend to prefer to have a black sheet layout environment, and then my 3D parallel perspective is shaded there, and I can go ahead and modify this. So, I tend to keep my 2D model space essentially in black, my sheet layout space in either black or that dark gray that they're showing.
The block editor—I also change that to be this darker shade of gray. So, I have my block editor. Here's the background color.
I'm going to check my crosshairs. So, you can see that my background is dark. If my crosshairs are black, I'm not going to see them.
So, I'm going to make my crosshairs white. I'm going to go back to the sheet layout, look at the crosshairs there. They're white, and in my model space environment, they're also white.
And these are pretty much the only colors that I tend to change. One thing I like to do is I like to have my crosshairs be 100% of the screen. So again, what's happening is that when we have the crosshairs, now they're going fully across the screen, and then I take my fade control for my X-Refs and turn them all the way down.
Because what happens is if you have the fade control up here where it comes when it ships, then any X-Ref files are faded back. The open and save—you can see that it's saving by default in a 2013 format. I'm going to save it in a 2010 format.
I tend not to lose any integrity in the data file. Plot and publish—I'm going to go ahead and have Drawing to PDF as my default printer. And I'm just going to apply it right now.
Some system variables here, nothing to be changed. User preference—I always look here to make sure that my insertion scale factor is set at inches. A lot of people will bring drawings in, and when they insert them, they're out of scale because what's going on is each drawing remembers its insertion scale variable.
And if someone, for example, on their drawing has something with the base unit set as feet, when it's brought into an environment here that says inches, it's going to be scaled up by a factor of 12. And so, just making sure that inches are consistent is really good. Drafting—the auto stamp marker is fine.
Aperture size is fine. 3D modeling—no changes there. Selection—I tend to prefer having my pick box a little bit larger.
The grip sizes are fine. I'm going to go apply and OK. So, these have been the configuration changes using the options bar.