This procedure will walk through the process of using Microsoft Excel to create script files to be read into AutoCAD. Tabular information is often present in the spreadsheet that needs to be transferred to CAD.
Users often want to add miscellaneous lisp routines to their system, having them automatically loaded and available at all times. The intentions of this procedure is to allow the customization to survive a reinstallation or upgrade of AutoCAD.
Recent versions of AutoCAD change the default behavior of newly created Mtext objects. After creation you can’t change the Width in the Properties dialog! Users often want to set the width to 0.0.
For existing Mtext objects, change the Columns setting (just below the width) to “No Columns”. You will have to commit this change by pressing ESC, then reselect the Mtext to be able to change the width.
To restore previous behavior for all newly created Mtext, change the MTEXTCOLUMN to 0 in your current (and prototype) drawing.
There may be times on listing of objects (like polylines) when you don’t want AutoCAD to prompt to press enter. This prompt also gets included in a copy/paste of the information.
Set the QAFLAGS system variable to 2 when you want continuous listing without prompt. Set it back to 0 to restore default behavior.
This built in AutoCAD functionality is often overlooked because it’s not on any menu/ribbon. This capability can significantly speed up the opening of large files.
Users often report that menus (or ribbons) from our products come up missing in AutoCAD. This has been a problem for many years and isn’t limited to our products (customers with their own custom menus can have the same problem).
Try this procedure to restore the menu(s).
- Issue the MENULOAD command (do not issue the MENU command).
- Carefully make sure the PRODUCTNAME is highlighted in the top list (not ACAD, etc).
- Click the [Unload] button.
- Choose the [Browse] button.
- Navigate to the PRODUCTNAME folder and select the menu (CUIx file).
- Choose the [Load] button.
Also be aware that AutoCAD will only remember roughly 21 pulldown menus. If you have close to this number of menus and AutoCAD is regularly dropping one, that is the reason.
You can use the keyboard to quickly switch between the layouts in the drawing, simply hold the CTRL key while pressing the Page Up/Page Down buttons, such as CTRL+PAGE DOWN to move to the right of the tabs.
Remembering selection sets is just as easy as points (above). Use this syntax at the command prompt to remember a selection set.
Command: (setq sset (ssget))
Whenever AutoCAD requests objects to process within a command, simply provide it again with the ! prefixed symbol.
Command: MOVE
Select Objects: !sset
To remember a point (assign it to a variable), use this simple syntax at the command prompt. This assigns the point you pick to a variable named ‘pnt’. You can repeat this procedure to store several points with symbols like ‘pt1’, or ‘pointone’.
Command: (setq pnt (getpoint))
Anytime you want to refer to that point within the same drawing session, simply prefix it with an ! at the pick point prompt.
Base Point: !pnt
When you have multiple object snaps turned on that can be in effect for a given object (such as quadrant and center on a circle), you can press the tab key while hovering over the object to change the snap.