CADTutor

Learn AutoCAD with our Free Tutorials

Welcome to CADTutor

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

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.

Forum Latest

Currently Active Topics

This Week's Hot Topics

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

Shorten the Plot Scales List in a Viewport

by Michael Beall

From: AutoCAD Productivity Articles #140
Originally published: June 2015

Scale menuIf you plot from a viewport on a Layout tab, and you have a specific collection of plot scales you typically use, you may be interested in editing that list to display only the ones you need to see.

There are other approaches to accessing the same plot scale regularly, but this is one of the most straightforward.

How to Modify the List of Plot Scales

  1. When you're in a viewport, click the location on the Status bar where you see the scale/factor for the current viewport.

  2. Scroll to the bottom, then click Custom… to open the Edit Drawing Scales dialog box.

  3. I would recommend keeping 1:1, but then select those plot scales you really don't need, then click Delete.

  4. Organize the ones you use all the time by using Move Up or Move Down.

    Edit scales dialog

Note: If you totally gom it up, you can always hit Reset, then choose your desired collection of either Imperial, Metric, or both.

See all the articles published in June 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.

Tip of the Day

Dashboard's hidden depths

Dashboard

Did you know that there's more to the Dashboard than is apparent on the surface? When I first started working with it, I thought, "wouldn't it be great if all the 2D drawing tools were on there as well". Fortunately, they are. All you need to know is how to get at them.

Simply right-click on any part of the body of the Dashboard (not the vertical title bar) and select "Control panels" from the menu and then click "2D Draw control panel". You should see that the Draw and Modify toolbars are added as a new panel to the top of the dashboard.

Now you can keep your work area cleaner when using the 3D Modeling Workspace.

Today's tip is by David Watson

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.