Discover the steps to create a television outlet symbol in AutoCAD, using various commands and tools such as layers, line creation, rectangle draw, and multi-line text. Learn how to effectively use the Quick Measure tool, the Dimensions option, specifications of absolute and relative coordinates, and text justification for centering within a rectangle.
Key Insights
- The creation of a television outlet symbol in AutoCAD involves a systematic process of layers addition, line and rectangle drawing, and multi-line text utilization.
- Specific commands and tools are essential in the process, including the Quick Measure tool for line length verification, the Dimensions option for precise rectangle drawing, and the use of absolute and relative coordinates.
- Text justification is essential in positioning the text within the rectangle, especially when using multi-line text, which offers flexibility compared to single-line text and aids in achieving a centered placement.
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.
In this video we will work on the television outlet symbol. Let's go File, New.
Let's use our template. And File, Save. And I will save this as television-outlet.
I'll hit Save. And add my e-symbols layer. e-syms.
And the color will be 61. I'll make this my current layer. And I'll close my layer properties.
Control-S to save. Now in this case, the rectangle is the same size as our voice data outlet. 1 quarter inch by 1 quarter inch.
However, we know where it is, relative to 0, 0, because it is on top of a line that is 1 eighth of an inch tall. And the bottom of that line is at 0, 0. So, let's start by drawing the line. I'll go to Line.
My first point is 0, 0. And my second point can be drawn with polar, relative, or absolute coordinates. And in this case, I'll use absolute. 0, 1 over 8. Enter to lock it in.
Enter to say I'm done. And Zoom Extents. Now, let's check the length of that line using our Quick Measure tool.
And when I hover next to the line, we can see the length appear. I'll hit Escape. And now I want to draw my rectangle.
In this case, it will most likely be faster to draw the rectangle somewhere on the screen, and then use Move, point to point, to put it in the right location. I'll draw my rectangle. And I'll start somewhere over here.
And this time, instead of using my relative coordinates, I will use the Dimensions option. I can see that here, it is the D option. So, I'll do D, Enter.
And now it's asking for length, width, and quadrant. So, I know the length is 1 over 4, Enter. I know the width is 1 over 4, Enter.
And now it's asking for me to specify the other corner point. This, essentially, is a quadrant based on the first point. I want to put it in this quadrant, so I click.
And now my rectangle is drawn, quarter inch by quarter inch. In order to move the rectangle, I want to move from this midpoint to this endpoint. That is a point to point move, because the sentence is, from the midpoint to the endpoint.
I can see that my object snaps are still on for endpoint and midpoint. So, I can go move the rectangle, Enter to lock it in, from the midpoint to the endpoint, CTRL S to save. Now we can add the text that says TV.
In this case, the text is 1 eighth inch high, and we can see that it is centered in the middle of the rectangle. While these options can be accomplished with single line text, we can use multi-line text, and it allows for more flexibility in the multi-line text editor. It does not always mean we have to use multiple lines, but single line text can never have multiple lines in a single object.
It will always break the object into multiple text strings. This is very unfortunate when you're working with large pieces of text, like on a title block or title sheet. In this case, let's go to our text drop down, and choose multi-line text.
The first thing it wants us to do is to specify the bounding box of the text, which is not like Microsoft Word or other text applications. Because we have an infinite drawing area, AutoCAD needs us to specify where the text will live, in what box. So, in this case, we can use our rectangle as the bounding box.
I'll choose the top left corner, and the bottom right corner. Now our text can be drawn in this box. Our height, you can see, is currently set to six inches.
We need that to be one over eight inches. Enter. Then, we can see our justification is currently set to top left.
This is how it is in Microsoft Word and other text softwares by default. But in this case, we want it to be middle center. Now we can type TV, and hit the close text editor button.
Let's go zoom extents, and control s to save. In the next video, we will continue with our electrical symbols.
