Learn AutoCAD with our Free Tutorials

CADTutor delivers the best free tutorials and articles for AutoCAD, 3ds Max and associated applications along with a friendly forum. If you need to learn AutoCAD, or you want to be more productive, you're in the right place. See our tip of the day to start learning right now!

Free Tutorials and More

The Tutorials section provides over 100 original tutorials for AutoCAD, 3ds Max and other design applications such as Photoshop and Bryce. Michael’s Corner is a monthly article that brings you the best up-to-date AutoCAD tips and tricks. The Forums are a lively bulletin board where AutoCAD users can ask questions and get answers. The Download area provides free AutoCAD blocks, free AutoLISP routines and free digital images.

Site News

Michael’s Corner - May 2013

Shedding a Little Light on Things

The sunny month of May is when a young person's mind turns to improving their AutoCAD skills—or did I get that wrong? Anyway, whatever your intentions this month, Michael's Corner brings you another generous helping of tips, trick and useful insights. Michael has been investigating 3D tools and he brings you some useful pointers that will help make your 3D drafting more efficient.

One of the reasons I like publishing Michael's Corner each month is that, despite having used AutoCAD for over 25 years, I learn something new every month, which just goes to show that you can probably never know everything about this wonderful bit of software. Of course there is also more to learn every year when new features are added. One of the great "under the radar" features in AutoCAD 2014 is the object selection preview when using implied windows. Such a small feature that the publicity material barely mentioned it but I often find that it's these small changes that make the biggest difference to the efficiency of my work. Michael gives us a quick overview of this new feature—probably my favourite of AutoCAD 2014.

Video Tutorials

We've added a new Video Tutorials section to CADTutor! Some of our users have asked for video tutorials in addition to the text-based tutorials already on the site. Check them out and let us know what you think. Also, for those of you who prefer to watch your online video at YouTube, why not visit the CADTutor YouTube channel?

Currently Active Threads

This Week’s Hot Threads

Tip of the Day

Salvage a corrupted drawing

So, you opened a drawing only to find it has been corrupted. You've tried Recover but to no avail. Now what?

As a last resort, open a new drawing and then insert the corrupted drawing into the new one (InsertBlock…). The insertion will only bring in the main (Model Space) components of the corrupted drawing; this trick does not recover any paper space objects. Hey, I didn't promise a miracle but it sure beats losing the drawing altogether now, doesn't it?.

Today's tip is by ReMark

Missed a Tip?

Did you miss yesterday's tip? Maybe you forgot to drop by or maybe you don't visit over the weekend. If so, you can now see all the tips published during the past week. Also, if you have a tip you'd like to share with us, you can post it on our forum and if we like it, we'll publish it here.