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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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Using Images
A simple exercise to help you understand how images work in AutoCAD. Format: Text/Image
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Setting up your own free Web Space
Getting your website online could cost you nothing. This tutorial explores the various options for free web hosting. Format: Text/Image
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The UCS Icon
All about the UCS icon. Format: Text/Image
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Setting up a PostScript Plotter
How to set up a PostScript Plotter. Format: Text/Image
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Editing and Saving Materials
Once materials have been created and edited in the Material Editor to suit a particular scene they no longer need to be kept in the Materials Editor. Materials can be saved in material libraries and retreived for use in any other scene. This tutorial shows you how. Format: Text/Image
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Object Properties
This tutorial describes how to control the display of objects (colour, linetype etc.) using layers. It also explains what layers are and how they should be used. Format: Text/Image
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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
Possible Solutions to the Disappearing Drawing
From: AutoCAD Productivity Articles #142
Originally published: October 2015
Many of my customers encounter a situation where the drawing disappears when they change the view or use Zoom Extents. Here are a few of my suggestions that I'm beginning to include in all my training sessions:
Purge and Audit a drawing you inherit or haven't worked on in a while. In the Purge command, if the two boxes under Unnamed Objects are ‘live’, check them both.
Save the current layer condition as a layer state, then turn On and Thaw all layers. Objects that are on layers that are Off are still ‘seen’ when you Zoom Extents. Saving the layer state will give a fallback position, just in case.
Set the QTEXT (Quick Text) feature to ON, then Regen the drawing. Turning on Qtext will replace all text objects with boxes and may make the dots around the perimeter of the screen easier to see. This feature was used extensively in the early days of pen plotters when it just took too long — albeit very entertaining over a lunch hour — to plot drawings with a lot of text. Instead of pppllloootttiiinnnggg out each letter, it just drew a quick 4-sided bounding box around the text. (Set QTEXT back to OFF when you're finished.)
Set PDMODE to 35 to display Points in the Circle-X format. All my furniture/facilities customers have drawings with Point objects on the insertion points and other vital locations on their furniture. Setting the PDMODE — Point Display Mode — to 35 makes any floating Point object visible. (Set PDMODE back to 0 to go back to the default condition of dots.)
After all's said and done, hopefully you will see the misbehaving object that's keeping your drawing from displaying as you expected. At that point, you can either move those objects back among their peers… or simply delete 'em. That's your call, but at least now you know what that problem was!
See all the articles published in October 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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30th June to 6th July 2025
This week's image is by Lazarus
Software used: AutoCAD 2009
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Last Week's Image
Last week's image is by neekcotrack
Software used: AutoCAD 2005
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Two Weeks Ago
This image is by papagyi
Software used: AutoCAD 2009
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Three Weeks Ago
This image is by nocturne00
Software used: AutoCAD 2006
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
Trim Up
Often, you find yourself using the Trim command to tidy up loose ends of lines. If this is the case, don't bother selecting cutting edges, just use the "select all" option.
Start the Trim command, TRIM from the command line. At the prompt, simply hit the Enter key to accept the <select all> option.
from the pull-down menu orNow, just pick the line ends you want to remove.
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.