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How To Create An AutoCAD Template Tutorial


CampCAD

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Before we start drawing anything in AutoCAD, we must first set up our very own template. AutoCAD will automatically choose a template for you if you do not specify which template you would like to use. Our template is basically the skeleton of our drawing file, it pretty much tells us everything that will be on the drawing and where it goes.

 

Templates Include:

 

(LT) Linetypes (LIMITS) Drawing Limits (DDRMODES) Unit Types & Precision These are just some of the factors templates include…

 

Now, realistically you don’t want to have to change thAutoCAD Templateese settings every time you open AutoCAD, that’s just a waste of time and a huge pain. So that’s where our templates come in! Once we have a new drawing open, we are going to go ahead and go to File>New and in the templates folder we will choose the file “acad.” We have now loaded the acad template which we can turn into our own personalized template.

 

Changing Your Drawing Units

 

To change our units we are going to go to Format>Units (You can also type “units” in the command line at the bottom and the same window will pop up.) Now that we have our units window open, lets take a look at the different options we have.

 

Length Type Precision Angle Type

 

Precision

 

Remember, there is no “right” way to set up your units, you have to set them up however you need them to be, or however the project you are working on states you to be working in. As a general rule though you should draw at a 1:1 ratio, Being as our work space virtually has no “limit.” If we were drawing on a piece of paper we would of course have to scale it down because we are limited to the size of the paper.

So for the purpose of this lesson we are going to set the Precision to 0.00 and the Insertion Scale to inches. We will now get rid of the USC X & Y, we do that by going to View>Display>UCS Icon>On. If you know the hotkey you can enter “uscicon” in the command line and select off.

 

Limits

 

We are now ready to set the limits of the work space. We will set the work space to a normal sized paper. Enter “limits” in the command line and set your lower left corner to 0,0 proceeding to enter 8.5,11 for your upper right hand corner.To check if you entered it correctly you may hit enter twice, if entered correctly you will see your settings at 8.5,11

 

Page Setup

 

Select layout1 then right click layout1 and click on Page Setup Manager.

 

Setting up Layers

 

Now that our page is setup, it’s now time to focus on setting up our layers. Organizing your layers makes using AutoCAD 100% faster, organized, and all around better. There is nothing worse than having a lot of information in the work space and have it all mixed up to the point it just becomes and eye sore looking at it.Click on Layer Properties on the Home Ribbon under the Layers tab. In the upper left hand corner you will see 4 boxes, hover over each one until you find the one that says “New Layer” Create the new layer and name it “Center”. Now we can click on the color tab and select any color you want for your center line, I will choose green. Don’t forget to set the line type to continuous.Lets make another layer and call it “Dimension.” I’ll set the dimension color to blue and set the line as continuous. The last layer we can make for a basic setup is the “Hidden” line. So repeat the steps as above, I will make my hidden lines red, for line type be sure to select “Hidden.”

 

Drawing Style

 

Now it’s time to set up our drawing style, to begin we will type in “st” in the command line. Under Font Name in the drop down menu you can choose whatever font style you like, for the purpose of this lesson we will choose Times New Roman Baltic. For our regular 8.5″ x 11″ paper size we will set our height to .125 (1\8″) Depending on your paper size the height will obviously change to accommodate the size. I’m going to leave the style as standard, once you have the settings all worked in go ahead and hit apply.

 

OSnaps

 

For our Osnaps I am going to activate Polar, OSnap, and OTrack.

 

Creating A Title Block

 

We will be creating our title block using our layout1 tab.

Print in your layout & always draw in your model space.

On the lower right hand side of your layout1 screen be sure to switch it from model to paper.We will then enter our command “rec” into the command line to create ourselves a rectangle. We will set the base point at the lower right hand corner and drag upwards to the top left corner leaving a decent amount of space. Type “L” into the command line and select the lower left hand corner of the rectangle. Drag your mouse upwards so it is attached to the 90 degree line and type .5 then hit enter. The line you just created is .5″ above the bottom line now. Drag that newly created line all the way to the right at a 90 degree angle until it snaps on to the opposite side of the rectangle.

We will now use the offset command by typing “o” into the command line. If you read the command line it prompts you to enter in a distance, we will enter in 3″. Select the lower left hand side of the rectangle and offset that line 3″ to the right.We will then repeat the same step, this time we are going to offset the newly created line 1.5″ to the right. Repeat this again choosing the newly created line and offset it to the right 1″. The last offset we will do will be offsetting the newly created line 3.5″ to the right.Enter “dt” into the command line and select a point in the lower left hand box where you will type your name. (“dt” will ask you to specify the height and length of the text.) Enter “m” into the command line to move your text and center it in the corresponding box.The following boxes will include Date Project Scale

 

Next we will type in the command line “vports”

 

Select “Single” and click “Ok”

 

Click the lower right hand corner of the box and drag upwards to the top left corner of the box and select the corner and click. To activate the viewport double click inside the newly created rectangle, to deactivate it double click anywhere outside of the rectangle.

 

Saving

 

It’s finally time to save all the hard work we just did. Head to File>Save As

We will be saving this as a .dwt file, .dwt files are AutoCAD’s template file types. So in the drop down menu select the .dwt file type. You can then name the template whatever you desire.

 

I tried to edit the post into the forums the best I could!

 

Original Post: http://campcad.com/autocad-template/

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CampCAD, I don't see much value added in including instructions for LIMITS, which for the most part are a throwback to another era of computer technology.

There may be some who still use them, but I would venture to say that the great majority of professional users do not.

 

I just took a very quick glance at your post, and saw no mention of Imperial or Metric units, maybe I missed it, but if I didn't miss it, and it just plain isn't there, then you have left out a very important paragraph. :|

 

I am busy now, but look forward to going through it later, when I have a few minutes.

Edited by Dadgad
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CampCAD, I don't see much value added in including instructions for LIMITS, which for the most part are a throwback to another era of computer technology. There may be some who still use them, but I would venture to say that the majority of preofessional users do not.

 

I took an Autocad course back around 1986 when I was first learning. My instructor talked about Limits for approximately 2 minutes. Then he said ok, now turn off Limits and don't ever turn them on again. And I never have. :)

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I'm sorry to be so blunt but I lost interest after the first sentence. It sounds like a letter to a friend. A non-technical style for something that should be written very concisely.

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Changing Your Drawing Units

 

To change our units we are going to go to Format>Units (You can also type “units” in the command line at the bottom and the same window will pop up.) Now that we have our units window open, lets take a look at the different options we have.

I stopped reading upon discovering that glaring error. The misconception that the Units command somehow changes the Drawing Units has gotten thousands of AutoCad Noobs in serious trouble, and I insist that you go back and find out how to actually change Drawing Units, and what Drawing Units actually are, and then come back here with the corrected information.

 

Wait, there is a link at the bottom to a website with a domain name the same as your userid. We have been SPAMMAJAMA'D again.

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