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Michael BeallFrom: AutoCAD Productivity Articles #119
Originally published: November 2012

Polar Tooltip & Vector

by Michael Beall

30 degreesPolar TrackingWhen you rotate or move selected objects, you can do so without any restriction, or you can turn on Ortho… or Polar. If you use Polar and you don't see the tooltip displaying the angle and/or the dotted vector, you may possibly think it's 'broken' and not use it. So let's fix that.

How to Set the Display of the Polar Tracking Vector

  1. Auto Track SettingsRight-click anywhere in the Command line, then click Options to open the Options dialog box.

  2. On the Display tab, check all the boxes at the top under Auto Track Settings, then click OK to save your settings and close the Options dialog box.

  3. On the Status bar, right-click on Polar Tracking, then click 30.00 in the list.

    Note: Setting the angle doesn't turn the feature on, so make the Polar icon/word is blue. You can also toggle it On/Off with [F10]

  4. Launch the Rotate command, select an object, press [Enter], then specify a base point.

  5. Dotted vectorWhen prompted to specify the rotation angle, move your cursor around to see the tooltip with the distance and angle, as well as the dotted vector!

Hopefully that clarifies any confusion you may have had regarding the settings, and enables you to display the information you want when using this often-overlooked feature.

See all the articles published in November 2012

See this article in the November 2012 Corner

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