Seems too simple, right? Who doesn't know how to create a new drawing in AutoCAD? You click the NEW button in the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT), or choose NEW from the Application Menu, or type in NEW at the command line....right?

Do you really know what each of those do though? The NEW button in the QAT actually executes the command named QNEW. If you choose NEW from the Application Menu or type in NEW at the command line, you are executing the NEW command. You may have other UI elements such as toolbar buttons that call one or both of these commands. What is the difference?

So if you think this post look familiar, you are right. This originally ran back in 2009, but it was very popular and I wanted to update it and run it again so that it is at the top. I'm sure it will be new to a few people too.

How many of these do you know? How many do you use? What is your favorite "obscure" AutoCAD command or system variable? Leave a comment.

This tutorial serves two purposes. One is to create a new tool to convert Line or Arc entities to Polylines, and the other purpose is showing how to integrating this tool into a contextual tab.

We're using AutoCAD 2013, and by default there are no contextual tabs for Line or Arc entities. Let's create a tool to convert these object types to polylines and put it on a contextual tab.

Start by opening the CUI editor by running the CUI command. In the upper left pane, under the ACAD menu, expand Ribbon, and then expand Contextual Tab States.

Shaan Hurley has always been my reference for AutoCAD history and has an excellent page on this. So the question came up the other day "What was the first version of AutoCAD for Windows". My memory told me it was Release 12, but I was not quite sure. A little searching turned up this document which confirms that R12c3 (Release 12, patch c3) was the first major release for Windows (see first comment below regarding R11 for Windows). Since Windows itself taxed most affordable computer systems back then, most people probably stayed on DOS, Solaris, or one of the other platforms for AutoCAD at that time.

Image Courtesy Autodesk

I was excited to be invited to the Autodesk Media Summit last week at the Autodesk Gallery at Market One, in San Francisco. I arrived on Monday evening, a little late for the pre-event get together hosted by TechSoft 3D. However, the next morning we met next door at the Autodesk Gallery for a light breakfast and then quickly got started with the main event – a live webcast to introduce the Autodesk 2013 product line. 

The media room just prior to getting started Tuedsay morning

Users from all over tuned in via the Autodesk facebook page, while about 90 of us watched it live in person. I am sure we were burning up the Autodesk_Guest WiFi with all the live blog posts and tweets being sent out from the event. Carl Bass, President and Chief Executive Officer (@carlbass), led off the event by discussing how Autodesk received grief for predicting 10% growth last year. They ended up at 14% growth. Some of the interesting facts mentioned: 75% of Autodesk’s business is from outside the United States; in the past 30 years, AutoCAD has built a user base of about 12 million (legal) users, while the cloud based product AutoCAD WS has built a user base of over 7 million in only 2 years, with drawing uploads to AutoCAD WS over 300,000 per week.

Autodesk CEO Carl Bass - Image Courtesy Autodesk

Here is a direct link to the AutoCAD 2013 trial page.

If you would like to try AutoCAD LT 2013, see this link.

As you have may have already heard (or predicted because it's late March), AutoCAD 2013 has been launched. Below is my annual overview of what's new in this version. I've done this for the past 4 versions including AutoCAD 2009, AutoCAD 2010, AutoCAD 2011, and AutoCAD 2012

Here are a couple of online events coming next week from Autodesk.

1

What - Special Autodesk webcast with presentations by Autodesk CEO Carl Bass, Senior Vice President Amar Hanspal, and more.

When - Tuesday, March 27, 2012 at 9AM (PST), Noon (EST)

Where - You can catch this live webcast on the Autodesk Facebook page. You do not have to have a facebook account to participate.

2

What - An Autodesk virtual event to learn about the newest software, suites and more. Presenters include Autodesk Executives and Technical Evangelist Lynn Allen.

When - Thursday, March 29, 2012.

Where - Sign up here and get more information here.

Shaan Hurley has documented the AutoCAD 2013 (I guess that will be the name!) system requirements on his Between the Lines blog. Notably missing is support for Microsoft Vista. Windows XP is still supported. It should also be noted that AutoCAD 2013 does introduce a new file format, in keeping with the current 3 year pattern.

With regard to last week's post on modifying the PDF sheet display, I've taken another approach and come up with the following lisp code that will allow you to import some or all of the sheets of a multi-sheet PDF all at once. I realize that the built-in PDFATTACH command allows you to place multiple sheets at once, but you can't see the sheets as you place them. This lisp code is also more of a "how-to" for use in larger routines perhaps - and because such, this is raw lisp code with no error checking. Feel free to dress it up and append the header.

Load the lisp file and then type in the command PMP. Select a multi-sheet PDF file, and then enter the number of sheets you want to insert (this should be equal or less than the total number of sheets in the PDF). At this point you can start picking the lower left corner for each sheet until you reach the end.