Introduction

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

Believe it or not, AutoCAD is 30 years old, having been born in December 1982, when most people thought that personal computers weren’t capable of industrial-strength tasks like CAD. (The acronym stands for Computer-Aided Drafting, Computer-Aided Design, or both, depending on whom you talk to.) What’s equally scary is that many of today’s hotshot AutoCAD users, and most of the readers of this book, weren’t even born when the program first hit the street and the grizzled old-timers writing these words began using it.

AutoCAD remains the king of the microcomputer CAD hill by a tall margin, making it one of the longest-lived computer programs ever. It’s conceivable that the long-term future of CAD may belong to special-purpose, 3D-based software such as the Autodesk Inventor and Revit programs, or to specialized market-specific variations built on top of AutoCAD. At any rate, AutoCAD’s DWG file format is the de facto standard, so AutoCAD will be where the CAD action is for the foreseeable future.

You may have heard that AutoCAD is complex and difficult to learn and use. Well, it has been our observation that the easier any software is to learn and use, the sooner you bump up against its limitations. A car with no accelerator, one forward gear, no steering, and no brakes would be easy to use until you reached a hill, a curve, or a stop sign or you needed to back out of a parking space.

Yes, AutoCAD is complex, but that’s the secret to its success. Some claim that few people use more than 10 percent of AutoCAD’s 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 industry. If you follow our advice, we think you will find that using AutoCAD is as simple and intuitive as driving a car.

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

About This Book

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. They 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 2014 For Dummies, we occasionally mention differences from previous releases so that everyone gains some context and so that upgraders can more readily understand the differences; plus, you’re bound to encounter a few of the billions and billions of drawings that were created using older methods. We also mention the important differences between AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT so that you’re aware of the LT-related topics that you (or your colleagues) won’t find in this book: AutoCAD LT has no programming language and is nearly devoid of 3D capabilities.

This book does not cover the discipline-specific features in AutoCAD-based nor vertical market products, such as AutoCAD Electrical or AutoCAD Mechanical, although most of the information in this book applies to the general-purpose features of those programs as well.

Foolish Assumptions

AutoCAD has a large, loyal, dedicated group of longtime users. AutoCAD 2014 For Dummies is not for you if you’ve been using AutoCAD for a decade or more, if you plan your vacation time around Autodesk University, if you use AutoCAD to create wedding invitations, or if you read 1,200-page technical tomes about AutoCAD for pleasure. This book is for you if you want to get going quickly with AutoCAD, and you understand the importance of developing proper CAD techniques from the beginning.

However, you do need to have an idea of how to use your computer system before tackling AutoCAD and this book. You need to have a computer system with AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT (preferably the 2014 version). A printer or plotter and a connection to the Internet are helpful, too.

You also need to know how to use your version of Windows to copy and delete files, create a folder, and find a file. You need to know how to use a mouse to select (highlight) or to choose (activate) commands, how to close a window, and how to minimize and maximize windows. You should be familiar with the basics of your operating system before you start using AutoCAD.

Late in 2010, Autodesk released the first non–Microsoft Windows version of AutoCAD in 20 years. Although AutoCAD for Mac is now available, AutoCAD 2014 For Dummies covers only the Windows version. The two versions are file-compatible, but they differ in many ways in how they look and what they can do. If you have AutoCAD for Mac, you should be able to grasp basic concepts, but you might be better off with a Mac-specific book such as Mastering AutoCAD For Mac, by George Omura and Rick Graham (Sybex Publishing) or What's Inside? AutoCAD for Macintosh, by Ralph Grabowski, available as an e-book at www.upfrontezine.com/wiam.

Here are some conventions that you’ll run across in this book.

Using the command line

Text that we want you to type into the program at the command line, in a dialog box, in a text box, or elsewhere appears in boldface type, like the 0 at the end of the following line.

Specify starting width <0.0000>: 0

Examples of AutoCAD prompts appear in a special typeface, as does any other text in the book that replicates a message, a word, or text that appear onscreen. Sequences of prompts that appear on the AutoCAD command line have a shaded background, like this:

Specify lower left corner or [ON/OFF] <0.0000,0.0000>:

When there is a specific action we want you to take at one of these prompts, look for the italic passage at the end of this line, where we want you to press Enter:

Specify ending width <5.0000>: Press Enter

Many figures in this book also show AutoCAD command-line sequences that demonstrate AutoCAD’s prompts and sample responses.

Using aliases

Many AutoCAD commands have aliases — these shortcut versions have fewer letters than their full commands, in case you like to type commands at the AutoCAD command line. In this book, we show aliases in uppercase as part of the command names. To start a command, you have to type only its uppercase letters. For example, to draw a line, type either LINE (the official command for the Line command), or just L (its alias) and then press Enter to execute the command.

Icons Used in This Book

Throughout this book, we point out certain morsels of particularly important or useful information by placing handy little icons in the margin. Naturally, different icons indicate different types of information:

Herein lies a pointed insight that can save you time and trouble as you use AutoCAD. In many cases, Tip information acts as a funnel on AutoCAD’s impressive but sometimes overwhelming flexibility: After telling you many of the ways that you can do something, we tell you the way that you should do it, in most cases.

The Technical Stuff icon points out places where we delve a little more deeply into AutoCAD’s inner workings or point out information that most people don’t need to know most of the time. These paragraphs definitely are not required reading, so if you see one at a point when you’ve reached your techie-detail threshold, feel free to skip it.

Warnings tells you how to stay out of trouble when living close to the edge. Failure to heed its message may have unpleasant consequences for you or your drawing — or both.

You have a lot to remember when you’re using AutoCAD, so we’ve remembered to remind you not to forget about some of those things that you should remember.

This icon points to new stuff in AutoCAD 2014 (and, sometimes, in AutoCAD LT 2014). It’s designed mostly for people who are somewhat familiar with an earlier version of AutoCAD and want to be alerted to what’s new or different in this release. New users of AutoCAD who are starting out their CAD working lives with AutoCAD 2014 will also find this information interesting, especially when they can show off their new book-learnin’ to those grizzled AutoCAD veterans in the office who don’t yet know about all the cool new features.

This icon highlights text that shows the differences between AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT. If you’re using AutoCAD LT, you’ll find out what you’re missing compared to the full version of AutoCAD. If your friend is using AutoCAD LT, you’ll know where to look to find features in AutoCAD to brag about.

Beyond the Book

We have written a lot of extra content that you won’t find in this book. Go online to find

AutoCAD drawings that you can use in conjunction with this book at

www.dummies.com/go/autocad2014fd

The drawings are posted to the website in Zip format; just download and unzip them and they're ready to open in AutoCAD. The Zip files, which are named according to chapter, contain one or more drawing files. For example, afd03.zip contains the versions of the drawing in Chapter 3. Note that not all chapters have associated drawing files.

Online articles covering additional topics at

www.dummies.com/extras/autocad2014

Here you’ll find out how to create a custom profile, discover the differences between AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT, amid other details to aid you in your AutoCAD journey.

The Cheat Sheet for this book is at

www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/autocad2014

Here you’ll find a roadmap to setting up your drawings and keyboard shortcuts.

Updates to this book, if we have any, are at

www.dummies.com/go/autocad2014fdupdates

Where to Go from Here

If you’re reading this Introduction, you’re like us — you like to read. (The cut-to-the-chase people tend to flip to the index right away and look up what they need to know at that instant.) If you’re a total AutoCAD newbie, you can read this book in order, from front to back; it follows a straightforward route from setting up the drawing environment to outputting your masterworks on hard copy to sharing your work with others.

If you’re an experienced user, you’ll probably be an index-flipper who looks for the missing information needed to complete a specific task. You can probably find the index on your own, but we encourage you to browse through this book anyway, with a highlighter or sticky notes in hand, so that you can find those particularly important places when you need them again. If you’re competent in most areas of AutoCAD and you’re familiar with the previous version, look for the New In 2014 icons in the margins to find out about the latest features that you never realized you can’t live without.

Whichever route you choose, we hope that you enjoy your time with AutoCAD 2014 For Dummies. A-a-and, you’re off!