AutoCAD Crosshair: Tuesday Tips With Frank

[The AutoCAD Blog]

Alright, folks. It’s pop quiz time. I’ll even make it multiple choice.

Q. What do you call the interface item that moves with your mouse and has vertical and horizontal lines with a little box in the middle?

A. Crosshair
B. Cursor
C. Both
D. Neither

The answer, dear reader, is C. Both. Like a few other things in AutoCAD, this element is named differently depending on where you look.

Did you know you could customize it to your personal preference? Like most things in AutoCAD, you absolutely can. Some are more common than others, so I’ll group them that way, as I present them to you (in no particular order, other than the groups).

AutoCAD Crosshair Size

Probably the most common change is the size. This is most easily found in the Display tab of the Options dialog. There, you’ll find a text box and slider to define the size to display as a percentage of the screen size. Notice that here, and in the tooltip, this UI element is called Crosshairs, all while telling us via the tooltip that you’re setting the CURSORSIZE variable. Hmm.

Anyway, by default it is set to 5, or 5% of the screen. Some people like it bigger. You do you. Valid settings go from 1 to 100, with 100 showing the Cursor as full screen.

Next up is the little box in the middle, as I so eloquently described it earlier. This is controlled by the PICKBOX system variable, or you can use the handy slide control as found under the Selection tab of the Options dialog. Its default is 3, and valid settings can be from 0 to 50. When set to zero, selection previewing of objects is not available.

AutoCAD Aperture

Next is Aperture, which isn’t really a visual part of the crosshair, but it does affect how it works. You know that invisible area that defines when AutoCAD detects and locks onto objects when Object Snap (OSNAP) modes are active? Well, that’s the Aperture. The default is 10, which is larger than the Pickbox, so if you change the Pickbox size, I suggest bumping up the Aperture by a similar ratio.

You can set it from a handy slider control in the Drafting tab of the Options dialog. Its system variable name is APERTURE, so you can just type that in also. Valid settings are 1 to 50.

AutoCAD Crosshair Color

Finally, we come to the crosshair’s color. Change it to whatever floats your boat by clicking on the Colors button in the Display tab of the Options dialog. Choose Crosshairs from the elements list and use the color pulldown to suit your current mood, or maybe your favorite sports team. It’s up to you. Or you could be like me, and leave it to its default. It’s your choice.

Uncommon Changes

You know those little glyphs that show up next to your crosshair or pickbox that indicate what editing command you’re using? Those are called Badges, and you can control whether you see them or not. Below is an image showing the Erase badge.

There is no GUI control for these, so you’ll have to remember the system variable, CURSORBADGE. Set it to 1 to turn them off, or leave it at its default value of 2 to turn them on.

This next one flies under the radar, as I’ve never come up with a single good reason to use it, except to prank one of your co-workers (which is not condoned by anyone here at Tuesday Tip HQ).

It’s called CURSORTYPE, and again, it’s nowhere to be found in the GUI, so you’ll have to type it in. If you do, you can set it to 1, which will change the normal AutoCAD crosshair into a Microsoft Windows^® mouse pointer. Now you know.

Recall in the opening quiz, I described the cursor/crosshair as being vertical and horizontal lines? Well, they don’t have to be. There are a couple of ways to change that. One is another system variable called SNAPANG, which rotates the crosshair for you to a specified angle. In the image below, I’ve set SNAPANG to 25, which is the angle that the line is drawn. With ORTHO turned on, it’s a great way to draw at the same angle as your objects.

The other rotation mechanism is, of course, the ISODRAFT command. Your easiest method will be to turn it on from the Status Bar. The icon has a menu associated with it, which will allow you to change the drawing plane that you need. Do you like keyboard shortcuts as I do? Use CTRL-E to cycle through Top, Left, or Right planes.

One last thought

Remember that tease about the other function with different names? You probably know it as PUBLISH. Well, as an old sportscaster was fond of saying, “not so fast, my friends.”

If you go to the pulldown menu for the Quick Action Toolbar (QAT), you’ll find one of the possible entries is Batch Plot. You’ll find it named that way in the Plot flyout menu of the Application Menu (the big A in the corner). Go figure…

More Tuesday Tips

Check out our whole Tuesday Tips series for ideas on how to make AutoCAD work for you. 

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