Beginning AutoCAD 2015. Cheryl R. Shrock

of this lesson. It is very important that you understand and are familiar with AutoCAD’s interface.

      Note: You can close the Design Feed palette by clicking on the “X”. This will not be used until later in the workbook.

AUTOCAD APPLICATION WINDOW

      The AutoCAD Application Window default workspace

      Drafting & Annotation, is shown below.

      Important: I have changed my 2D background color to white for this workbook. Yours may be another color.

      AutoCAD 2015 comes with new Dark and Light color themes, on some of the images within this book you may see the ribbon color showing the Light theme, this is just for clarity. You may choose the Light theme if you wish.

      You may change the color of many areas using: Options / Display tab / Colors button

      If the remainder of your screen does not appear as shown below go to the Intro section of this workbook and follow the steps for configuring AutoCAD to match the workbook configuration.

      A description of each area is shown on the following pages.

       APPLICATION WINDOW DESCRIPTIONS

WORKSPACE

      Workspaces control the display of ribbons, tabs, menus, toolbars, and palettes. AutoCAD gives you the option of deciding how you would like them displayed. When you use a workspace, only the menus, toolbars, and palettes that are relevant to a task are displayed. For example if you selected the 3D Modeling workspace only 3D menus, toolbars and palettes would be displayed.

      There are 3 preset Workspaces.

      Drafting & Annotation (shown on the previous page)

      This workspace is the default display. It displays the necessary ribbons, tabs, menus, tools and palettes for 2D drafting. We will be using this workspace for all lessons within this workbook.

       3D Basics

      This 3D Basics workspace provides a simple workspace with the most basic tools for creating and visualizing 3D Models.

       3D Modeling

      The 3D Modeling workspace provides access to the vast array of 3D tools in AutoCAD.

       HOW TO SELECT A WORKSPACE

      1.Selecting a workspace is easy. Select the on the Workspace Switching icon located on the Status Bar at the bottom right corner of the screen.

      2.Select one of the workspace names displayed.

      Note: We will be using the “Drafting & Annotation” Workspace.

       APPLICATION WINDOW DESCRIPTIONS

APPLICATION MENU

      The Application Menu provides easy access to common tools

      Each of the tools will be discussed later in the workbook.

      1.Click on the Application Menu button in the upper left corner of the AutoCAD display screen. (The big “A”)

       Open Documents

      First let me emphasis this is not a method to “open” a drawing file.

      Open Documents is a list of all documents that are already open within AutoCAD.

      Display choice: The list of documents may be displayed as icons or images. If you hover the cursor over a document name a preview image will appear.

       View Recent Documents

      When you select Recent Documents a list of the recently viewed documents will appear.

      Display choices: This list may be displayed as icons or images and may be sorted in an ordered list or grouped by date or file type.

      If you hover the cursor over a document name a preview image will appear.

       Pinned Files

      You can keep a file listed regardless of files that you save later using the push pin button to the right. The file is displayed at the bottom of the list until you turn off the push pin button.

Quick Access Toolbar

      The Quick Access Toolbar is located in the top left corner of the AutoCAD window. It includes the most commonly used tools, such as New, Open, Save, Save as, Print, Undo and Redo.

       How to Customize the Quick Access Toolbar

      You can add tools with the Customize User Interface dialog box.

       For Example:

      After you have completed Lesson 4 you will find that you will be using “Zoom All” often. So I add the “Zoom All” tool to the Quick Access Toolbar. If you would like to add the “Zoom All” tool, or any other tool, to your Quick Access Toolbar follow the steps below.

      1.Place the Cursor on the Quick Access Toolbar and press the right mouse button.

      2.Select “Customize Quick Access Toolbar. . .” from the menu.

      3.Scroll through the list of Commands to “Zoom, All”

      4.Press the Left mouse button on “Zoom, All” and drag it to a location on the Quick Access Toolbar and drop it by releasing the left mouse button.

      5.Select the OK button at the bottom of the Customize User Interface dialog box.

      The Customize User Interface dialog box will disappear and the new Quick Access Toolbar is saved to the current Workspace.

       To Remove a tool:

      Place