Michael’s Corner

Michael's Corner is a monthly publication written by Michael E. Beall, Autodesk Authorized Author and peripatetic AutoCAD trainer. Michael travels all over the USA, bringing his fantastic experience and great understanding of AutoCAD to his clients. Michael's Corner brings together many of the tips, tricks and methods developed during these training sessions for the benefit of all users.

Michael's Corner provides something for every AutoCAD user. Every month, a number of articles cover a wide range of topics, suitable for users at all levels, including "The Basics" for those just starting out. Essentially, the aim of Michael's Corner is to help all AutoCAD users work smarter and faster.

This month…

From the Vault

Originally published June 2004

System Variable Editor

System Variable Editor. Another customer in the Los Angeles area brought this point to light recently. Without the System Variable Editor, "gathering" your system variables into a single, easily accessed file is an absolute pig. Hugh Bathurst and I preached the importance of script files when it comes to importing your "gottahave" variables (See Michael’s Corner, February, 2003), and we were ecstatic when we discovered the System Variable Editor, introduced in Volumes 1-9.

The System Variable Editor is the ultimate Cover-Your-Tail utility. Any given AutoCAD variable is either saved in the drawing or the registry. For example, the size of the cursor is set in the CURSORSIZE variable and is saved in the registry; it is the same across any drawing. On the other hand, the fillet radius, FILLETRAD, is a variable that can be different in each drawing. There are well over 400 system variables in AutoCAD 2005.

What To Do

After configuring AutoCAD with your desired settings, I would suggest you go to ExpressToolsSystem Variable Editor. Click the Save All button and save the SVF file as something like yourname.svf in some safe location.

When To Use It

Let's say somebody sends you a drawing and it is totally misbehaving and you can't figure out the problem. Go into the System Variable Editor and click the Read button, then navigate to yourname.svf and click Open. The SVF file reads in all the variables current at the time you created the SVF. Chances are, some of the conditions have now been "corrected" and you can continue with what you need to do.

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