Welcome back to this beginners tutorial on 15 quick shortcuts in
AutoCAD. The purpose
of learning these shortcuts in AutoCAD is to greatly speed up your drawing so let's jump right in.
1. The first shortcut is "L" for Line. You type "L" into your
keyboard and hit "enter" and then it brings up the line function.
2. The
second shortcut is "PL"
for Polyline. I type in
"PL" hit "Enter" and then I can simply draw a polyline,
connect it up to the last point hit escape. And then if I hover my mouse over
it you'll see this one object. That's "PL" for "polyline".
3. The third
shortcut is "C" for circle. Type "C", hit enter
and it will allow me to draw a circle. Now I can drag that out and I can click
or I can highlight in the box what measurement I'd like it to be. So then say I
want it to be 300 type in 300 "enter'. There you go there's a circle -
"C" for circle.
4. The fourth
shortcut is "REC" for rectangle. Type in “REC” hit enters and then I can draw my rectangle or alternatively
I can specify the sizes in the command box. Go ahead and hit enter. That's
"REC" for a rectangle.
5. The
Fifth shortcut is "POL"
for Polygon. I'm going to type "Pol", "Enter", and
then it's going to ask me a series of questions either in the command bar below
or the box adjacent to my cursor. So the first question is how many sides do I
want? I'm going to say 4. Hit "Enter". Then it's going to specify the
centre of the Polygon. Now, you can specify that on-screen or you can just go
ahead and click on the screen. And then it will ask me whether I want to inscribe
it in a circle or circumscribe around a circle. I'm going to hit enter and then
specify the radius. You can do that on-screen or you can drag your mouse out
like so and then click. And that's polygon "POL" for the polygon.
6. The
next shortcut that I'm going to show you is "ARC" for Arc.
"ARC" hit "Enter". You draw the two points and then you
curve the angle that you would like to choose. Click on the screen. That's
"ARC" for Arc.
7. The
seventh shortcut is "ELLIPSE".
That's "ELLIPSE", "Enter". Then I can either type in the
axis that I'd like to specify or I can click on the screen, draw the points and
then it will draw the ellipse whether I'd drag my mouse like that.
"ELLIPSE" for an ellipse. Now leaving the ellipse shape on my screen.
8. The
next shortcut is copy which is "CO", hit "Enter".
I then select the object I want to Copy, Hit "Enter" and then choose
the base point and I'll choose the centre and then I can drag that across and
I've copied that object. So that's "CO" for Copy.
9. The
next shortcut is "LA" to
bring up the Layer Properties Manager.
So I'm going to type in "LA", hit "Enter" and there you
are. That's the Layer Properties Manager. I also have another video on how to
properly manage the Layer Properties Manager as well as create a new layer. You
will see the tab at the top. If you click on that it will bring that tutorial
up for you.
10. The
tenth shortcut I'm going to show you is the sketch function. So you type "SKETCH" which is the shortcut
into your keyboard hit "Enter". And now I can sketch on the screen
anything that I like and I'm just gonna drag and draw this curved line here. So
that's "SKETCH" to Sketch.
11. The eleventh shortcut that I’m going to show you is "DI" for Distance.
So I type "DI", hit "Enter" and you'll see that if I click
on the first corner of this square that I have on my screen and then drag it across
to the next one it will then highlight that the measurement is a thousand. I
click "Enter" and you'll see that it's has brought up above the
command bar which shows that a thousand is the measurement. "DI" for
Distance.
12. The
twelfth shortcut that I use which is really useful is "PAN". So type in "PAN", hit "Enter" and
you see that I can move the screen to suit. Now i often use this in the viewport if
you want to bring the drawing into how you'd like to select it. But this is "PAN"
to Pan.
13. The
next shortcut I will show you is "DIM"
for Dimension. I type in "DIM",
hit "Enter" and I then measure the two points that I want to apply
the dimension too. And then I drag up. That's "DIM" for Dimension.
14. The
next AutoCAD shortcut is "AREA".
I type in "AREA" hit "Enter", and it'll then bring up the
area calculating function which I then drag around the square that I have on my
model space screen. Hit "Enter" and you can see that the area is then
highlighted just above the command bar here.
15. The final shortcut that I'm going to show you in AutoCAD for beginners is "ZOOM" so I'm going to type
"ZOOM" into the command bar, hit "Enter". And it's going to
ask me these questions along the bottom and it gives me a range of shortcuts
here. But one I regularly use is "Extents" and what
"Extents" does is it pops the image or the images that have drawn in
my model space or in my viewport and it brings them so it shows them fully in
that viewport or Model Space. So I'm going to hit "E" and then hit
"Enter" and you can see that there it's brought that square into full
view within my Model Space.
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