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Michael’s Corner

Michael BeallMichael'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…

October - One-derful!!!

It's a God-thing.

I had no idea that 14 years ago I would be given the opportunity to make an impact on the professional lives of so many. Only God knew what was ahead, and hopefully, the contributions I have made through Michael's Corner have equipped many of you to be more productive and a bit more savvy using AutoCAD. And apart from all the AutoCAD bashing that is going on, I'm sure it has a long life ahead.

So, in an effort to keep the AutoCAD fires burning, here's what I have for my final installment…

…A reminder on how to customize your hot keys
…Three Power Tools — one for Zoom, one for editing, and one for Layers
…Two Odd Spots — one for Layers and one for Hatching
…Buried text treasure
…And how to Search 14 years of the Archives

As for what's ahead for me, I will continue to present a variety of AutoCAD sessions — Fundamentals, Intermediate, Customizing, Updates, and 2D & 3D. I will also keep training CAP Designer, 20-20 Worksheet, Visual Impression (those three from 20-20 Technologies, Inc.), and some Revit Fundamentals. Next year I'm looking forward to being very involved in training CET (from Configura, Inc.) when Herman Miller joins the growing number of manufacturers embracing this software that is being touted as the ‘Future of Space Planning’. Personally, I'm looking forward to spending a bit more time with Donna, my lovely bride of 30 years. When this posts, we'll probably be within days of going on our 30th Anniversary vacation to the Tanque Verde Ranch in Tucson; Ee-Hah! We had such a good time when we went for our 20th, we figured we'd do it again!

Ah, and I'm hoping to have The AutoCAD Workbench, Final Edition out before snow flies.

And with that, Mike drop! …so to speak.

The LORD bless you and keep you;
The LORD make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace. Numbers 6:24-26

This month's articles

Change F1 to ESC
Smoother Zoom
Stretch with Extension
Lock Layers with a Crossing Window
Layer Columns & Hatch Background Color
Text Frame on Mtext

From the Vault

Originally published August 2010

The Old ‘Cookie Cutter Trim’ Still Around in EXTRIM

Lawrence Berkeley Labs have hundreds of drawings, most of which have multiple layout tabs. My friend there was looking for a way to document these plans and the general idea was to just ‘grab’ specific areas, then use the Wblock command to create a drawing of just that area. [See Michael's Corner, June 2006, or p. 79 in The AutoCAD Workbench for more on Wblock.]

Extrim in action

You will need to open a drawing and then consider using SaveAs as you experiment with this command.

Note: This routine cannot trim blocks or Xrefs, so you will need to first Bind or Explode the geometry to be trimmed.

How to Use EXTRIM to Trim Objects on the Outside

  1. Create a Rectangle or a Circle around the area of the drawing you want to essentially isolate or ‘grab’.

  2. Enter EXTRIM, and you will see the following prompt:

    Pick a POLYLINE, LINE, CIRCLE, ARC, ELLIPSE, IMAGE or TEXT for cutting edge...
    Select Cutting Edge

  3. After you select the object to be the cutting edge, you see the following:

    Specify the side to trim on:

  4. Click on the inside or outside of the object being used as the cutting edge and AutoCAD trims the intersecting objects.

Block not trimmedIn the opening figures of this article, you will see the result if you trim the objects on the outside of the rectangle. The third figure displays the result if you specify the inside of the rectangle as the side to trim on.

In this detail figure, you will see that the block was not trimmed.

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