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CADTutor provides the best free tutorials and articles for AutoCAD, 3ds Max and associated applications along with a friendly community 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. Michael’s Corner is an archive of productivity articles that brings you the best AutoCAD tips and tricks. Our Forum is a lively community where AutoCAD users can ask questions and get answers. The Downloads area provides free AutoCAD blocks, free AutoLISP routines and free images.
Tutorials of the Moment
Recently viewed tutorials
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The Material Editor
The Material Editor provides functions to create and edit materials and maps. This tutorial is a basic introduction to the options available. Format: Text/Image
Last visited: 1 minute ago
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Drawing Objects
Getting to grips with AutoCAD's basic drawing tools. This is an ideal start for the AutoCAD beginner. Format: Text/Image
Last visited: 3 minutes ago
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User Co-ordinate Systems
This tutorial describes what UCSs are, why we need them and how to use them. The correct use of UCSs with AutoCAD is the key to producing good 3D models and they can also help with 2D work. Format: Text/Image
Last visited: 5 minutes ago
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Loft Mapping
This tutorial follows on from the simple Loft tutorial in Options for Creating Objects and demonstrates how to map a material along a lofted object. Format: Text/Image
Last visited: 5 minutes ago
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Multi/Sub-Object materials
A Multi/Sub-Object material is a container for a number of sub-materials. This type of material is used when you need to assign different materials to different parts of an object and is used in infrastructure and environment projects mainly for objects such as benches, tables, lamposts, buildings etc. This tutorial works through a number of examples. Format: Text/Image
Last visited: 5 minutes ago
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Standard mapped materials - Procedural Maps
Procedural maps use computer generated effects and are applied to materials for many different purposes. They have to be scaled and positioned on the object using a UVW Map modifier or a Map Scaler modifier. This tutorials uses a worked example to show you how. Format: Text/Image
Last visited: 6 minutes ago
CADTutor Tutorials
Our tutorials are comprehensive but straightforward introductions to AutoCAD and related software. They are designed to help beginners get to grips with design workflows as quickly as possible. There are over 100 to choose from, some text/image based and others in video format. Whatever stage you are at in your learning, you should find a tutorial to help.
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CADTutor Forums
Our forum is a vibrant community of experts and beginners. The main focus is helping beginners get to grips with AutoCAD and to help more advanced users become more productive. The AutoLISP forum is one of the busiest out there, providing expert advice for busy professionals.
AutoCAD Productivity
Avoid Using ‘Standard’ in Text & Dimension Styles
From: AutoCAD Productivity Articles #141
Originally published: August 2015
In addition to Layer 0, every single drawing on the planet has a Text style called ‘Standard’, and a Dimension style called ‘Standard’. They're the defaults.
When developing company standards, it's best to not modify the Standard styles; leave 'em alone and make your own.
And here's why. Let's say you have text you added to Drawing A (using your modified ‘Standard’ text style to use the Trebuchet font), and you drag that text into Drawing B where the Standard text style uses the TXT.SHX font.
Since Drawing B already has a ‘Standard’ text style—see opening sentence, above—who do you think will "win" when it comes to how the text looks? The text in Drawing B will use the font which is already assigned to the Standard text style.

In the illustration, you see the result when I drag the text from Drawing A into Drawing B. Questions?
See all the articles published in August 2015
Michael's Corner
Between 2003 and 2016, Michael Beall (and one or two guests) wrote almost 600 articles for CADTutor. The focus of these articles is AutoCAD productivity, and although some of them are now more than a few years old, most remain relevant to current versions of AutoCAD. The article above is just one example. Check out Michael's Corner for a full listing.
Image of the Week
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9th – 15th February 2026
This week's image is by StykFacE
Software used: AutoCAD 2008
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Last Week's Image
Last week's image is by CADken
Software used: SketchUp
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Two Weeks Ago
This image is by arjun_samar
Software used: 3ds Max with V-Ray and Photoshop
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Three Weeks Ago
This image is by Alex Moiceanu
Software used: SolidWorks 2011
Gallery of Work
Over the years, our forum members have contributed hundreds of images, showcasing their amazing work. The images above are just a small selection that demonstrate the wide range of project types our community is involved with. Take a look at our gallery to see all the images published in the last 12 months.
Tip of the Day
Do you want to turn it into one? <Y>
When using PEDIT and selecting an object which is not a polyline you will get a message asking if you want to turn it into a polyline. This can be quite annoying if you're having to create closed polylines from a bunch of lines. To stop getting this message, type PEDITACCEPT and press Enter. Then type 1 and press Enter. This will automatically answer "yes" to the question in future.
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.