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AutoCAD Productivity

Drawing Information

by Michael Beall

From: AutoCAD Productivity Articles #137
Originally published: December 2014

For billing purposes, it's nice to know how long you have spent working in a drawing. To that end, the Time command may be a helpful resource, especially given the elapsed time feature that can be toggled ON and OFF, and can also be Reset.

Command:  TIME
Current time:             Sunday, November 23, 2014  3:44:54:790 PM
Times for this drawing:
  Created:                Wednesday, November 14, 2007  2:42:44:984 PM
  Last updated:           Sunday, November 23, 2014  9:59:28:105 AM
  Total editing time:     0 days 04:45:06:399
  Elapsed timer (off):    0 days 04:44:32:866
  Next automatic save in: 0 days 00:07:30:395

Enter option [Display/ON/OFF/Reset]:

Drawing PropertiesTo keep track of your time in the drawing, launch the Time command, then begin the elapsed timer with the ON option. When finished, use the OFF option to display the total editing time. The above information indicates that I was editing the drawing for a little more than 30 seconds - 04:44:32 to 04:45:06.

DWGPROPS [Application menu ❯ Drawing Utilities ❯ Drawing Properties] Another useful tool for quick information may be the Dwgprops command found in the ‘scarlet letter’. It's nice to have the Location and Size information immediately available, rather than going out to Save As.

See all the articles published in December 2014

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

Keeping the UCS icon in its place

By default, AutoCAD always displays the UCS icon at the drawing origin (0,0) unless the origin is off screen, in which case, the UCS icon sits quietly in the bottom left-hand corner of the drawing area.

If you find the UCS icon distracting when it's floating in the middle of the screen, you can force it to be displayed in the bottom left-hand corner using the ucsicon command.
Enter an option [ON/OFF/All/Noorigin/ORigin/Properties] <ON>:
Use the "Noorigin" option to force the icon into the bottom left corner and the "ORigin" option to set it back to the default.

See the UCS Icon tutorial for more details.

Today's tip is by David Watson

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