AutoCAD® For Dummies®, 18th Edition
Contents at a Glance
Part 1: Getting Started with AutoCAD
Part 2: Let There Be Lines
Part 3: If Drawings Could Talk
Part 4: Advancing with AutoCAD
Part 5: On a 3D Spree
Part 6: The Part of Tens
Introduction
welcome to the wonderful world of AutoCAD and to the fame and fortune that awaits you as an AutoCAD user. (Would I lie to you?)
Believe it or not, AutoCAD is almost 40 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 who 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
when the grizzled old-timer writing these words began using it.
AutoCAD remains the king of the PC computer CAD hill by a tall margin, making it
one of the longest-lived computer programs ever. It’s conceivable that the longterm 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, and so AutoCAD will be where the CAD action is for the foreseeable
future.
You may have heard that AutoCAD is complex, and therefore is difficult to learn
and use. Yes, the user interface includes about 1,300 icons. But it has been my
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 my advice, I think you will find that using
AutoCAD is as simple and intuitive as driving a car.
Believe it or not, AutoCAD is almost 40 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 who 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
when the grizzled old-timer writing these words began using it.
AutoCAD remains the king of the PC computer CAD hill by a tall margin, making it
one of the longest-lived computer programs ever. It’s conceivable that the longterm 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, and so AutoCAD will be where the CAD action is for the foreseeable
future.
You may have heard that AutoCAD is complex, and therefore is difficult to learn
and use. Yes, the user interface includes about 1,300 icons. But it has been my
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 my advice, I think you will find that using
AutoCAD is as simple and intuitive as driving a car.
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