Autocad – Complete tutorial for beginners (Full tutoria… — Transcript

Complete beginner tutorial for AutoCAD 2020 covering basic tools, commands, mouse usage, and drawing techniques in 2D.

Key Takeaways

AutoCAD commands can be executed via icons, typing full names, or using shortcuts (aliases).
Mouse usage greatly enhances navigation and selection efficiency in the workspace.
Polar tracking is essential for drawing lines at precise angles like horizontal and vertical.
Command names and shortcuts remain consistent across different AutoCAD versions and platforms.
The tutorial is structured to allow easy navigation through topics using timestamps and subtitles.

Summary

Introduction to AutoCAD interface including application icon, ribbon, tabs, and panels.
Explanation of drawing basic shapes like lines and circles using icons, command names, and shortcuts (aliases).
How to use the command bar to follow prompts and exit commands.
Importance of mouse functions: zooming with the wheel, panning by holding the wheel, and selecting objects with left and right buttons.
Different selection methods: blue box requires full object coverage, green box selects objects partially covered.
Using right-click menu for accessing object properties and quick properties panel.
Drawing lines with specified length and direction using polar tracking for horizontal and vertical alignment.
Commands and shortcuts are consistent across AutoCAD versions and platforms, facilitating ease of use.
Video includes a clickable content list in the description and subtitle options for better understanding.
Tutorial is designed for first-time users and architecture or engineering students to confidently create 2D drawings.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

Hi people, and welcome to this complete tutorial for beginners in AutoCAD. First of all, I need to mention that this tutorial is also available divided into 6 parts. The playlist that you can see here. Click on the card above if you prefer to watch

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it that way. By the way, in the description of the video, you can find the full list of contents, so it's going to be easy to access the topic that you want to watch.

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This video is intended for learners that are using the software for the first time, and even though I'm using the version "AutoCAD 2020," I will conduct the lesson in a way that if you have a different version, it will not be a problem for you to understand.

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At the end of this tutorial, you will get the knowledge to draw most types of drawings in 2D and solve your tasks easier. If you are an architecture or engineering student, for example, this is the AutoCAD default display, which consists of different areas.

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Above, at the left, you find the application icon. This is the menu where I can open a new document, open a file, or do operations regarding saving or exporting. The main part at the top is called the ribbon.

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There you find the majority of tools you will need during the program. Right above, you can find these tabs which group the buttons in different categories. For example, the current one is the Home tab, which has the most used icons.

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If you switch to the Insert tab, I find icons related to this category. Inside a specific tab, the icons are subgrouped in panels. For example, in the Home tab, the first panel has the icons which can perform drawing actions.

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In the second panel, they are related to modifying objects, and on the third panel are the annotation icons. Additionally, when you click on a panel that has an arrow facing down, it shows extra icons which are used less often.

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When a panel has a diagonal arrow at the right, I can access the settings window of this category. Now, let's show you how to use tools in AutoCAD. For example, imagine I want to draw a line. As you may guess, I can click on the icon here.

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I go to the workspace, I click for the first point, and then where I want the second point, I click again. Simple. I'm going to repeat the process, but this time I want you to pay attention to this.

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The command bar. This shows the operations that are taking place during the project. I will show you. I click again on the line icon, and you can notice here "LINE specify first point." The first word which appears in capitals is the command name.

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In this case, LINE. Then that's the prompt sentence which tells me what I should do next. Though I click here to specify the first point, then it asks to specify the next point. Click again. As you see, I just drew a line, but it keeps asking for specifying another

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point. It would draw a new line. As I don't want it, I can press Escape to exit the line command. In conclusion, to perform any action in AutoCAD, I can type its command name. For example, I type line and press ENTER,

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and I can draw a line, then press the button Escape to leave the command. Now I want to draw a circle. I can click on its icon or type the command name, which is circle. Additionally, each command has a shortcut called "alias," so I don't need to type its

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full name. For example, L is the shortcut for the command line, and C is the shortcut for circle. During this tutorial, each time I introduce a new command, I make an annotation at the left part of the screen showing the command name,

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the alias, and its location on the ribbon. This way of inserting commands makes AutoCAD easy to switch from different versions. If for any reason I'm going to a computer that has AutoCAD 2007, which had a different display than this one,

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I can still work with no problems because the command names and their shortcuts are the same. Of course, some functions were not available at that time, but almost all the basics didn't change. The same applies to the version on Mac.

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Even AutoCAD 2020 has a different display. The icons are in different places. You can just type the command names and don't need to worry about finding them on the screen. Now, before proceeding, I want to tell you that in

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this video you can access the topic that you desire to learn, as I have a list of contents in the description of the video. Just click on the time there. Maybe this can be useful for you. You can enable the subtitles by clicking here.

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For me, it's easier to understand with them, especially the parts that require a lot of attention. How to use the mouse in the workspace. Having a mouse is very important for working in AutoCAD, as it's much more comfortable than using just the touchpad,

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especially for zooming or moving the workspace area. Let's see the functions of the mouse buttons. Here I attached this image to help you. Mouse wheel. With the mouse wheel, I can zoom the workspace. It's very simple. If I scroll up, I zoom in.

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If I scroll down, I zoom out. The zooming always applies to the exact location of the pointer. For example, in this situation, if you want to zoom these objects, I need to move the pointer over them, scroll up, and you notice they are

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filling all the screen. Simple. To move the workspace area, press and hold the wheel. When you see this hand, you can move around. Left button. Clicking with the left button, I can select objects like this circle. If I want to select the circle and the line,

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I can click first on one, then on the second without pressing the Control key, unlike other programs. But now imagine you have a bunch of objects to select. It could take a long time to select them all. For that reason,

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if I click in an empty space, a selection area opens. This allows me to select more than one object. However, this is important: there are two kinds of selection. If I open the area to the right, the color is blue.

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If I open to the left, the area appears in green color. What's the difference?

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When I open to the right, blue color, I have to cover the entire object to select it. If I would open to the left, green color, it's enough if I only cover one part. Also, you can understand if the object is going to be selected when you

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see it turning bold. Now, the right button. The right button opens this panel with several options you can choose, but when you select an object and right-click, you can access, for example, to its properties. I click. It's a long list over here.

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I'm going to close it. However, there is a compact version of properties, "quick properties," which contains the most important features. For this line, you can see the object type, line color, layer, line type, and length. By the way, in the quick properties of this circle,

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some of the topics didn't pop up for the line, as they are more relevant for circles, like the diameter, radius, or area. In this chapter, I'm going to teach you to draw lines properly. The line is probably the most basic tool and the one you will use most of the time.

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Before, I showed how to draw a line but without any specified length or direction. I mean, if it's horizontal, vertical, or if it makes an angle with the X axis, for example. That's exactly what you will learn in the next few minutes.

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Draw a horizontal line. To draw a horizontal line, I need to activate first the command line. I can click on the icon there or type the command name, as you remember from the first chapter, or I can simply type "L." It's the alias for line

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and press ENTER. I click anywhere on the workspace for the start point, then I drag the cursor to the right, and you can notice this dashed green line with this label saying polar and zero degrees. If I click right now, the line becomes completely

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horizontal. This happens because I have the polar tracking turned on. This icon is located in the status bar. The polar tracking allows the cursor snapping to certain angles. By default, these angles are set for 0º, 90º, 180º, and 270º degrees,

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making the lines vertical and horizontal. Now look what would happen if the polar tracking is off. Click on the icon. It's disabled now. Then I'm going to draw the line again. Type L, press ENTER, click for placing the start point, then as I'm

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trying to draw a horizontal line, I realize that the da...

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drawings draw a line with specific length this time I'm going to draw again the horizontal line but with the precise length of 100 it doesn't matter the units for now as the last command used was "line" I could press ENTER to revert to the previous

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one look it turned on again the command I click I move horizontally to the right now that the line is on the direction I desire I can type 100 and press Enter easy you just drew a horizontal line with the length of 100

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but be aware when I type the length I cannot change the direction anymore see I move the mouse and nothing happens so if it's not on the direction you want you can press escape now I can make it vertical for

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example insert the length again and press ENTER to confirm this I click on the line right click go to quick properties and here you have it length 100 orthomode if I want to draw only orthogonal lines I can click on the icon "ortho

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mode" "restrict cursor orthogonally" then when I'm drawing a line I can only make it horizontal or vertical this can be useful if I'm at a part of a project where I just need those type of lines like in the example here

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now let's draw this line here with 70 of length but with a 30º angle from the x-axis which you can check looking at the UCS coordinates they are by default located at the left corner of the screen so I draw again a line

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start point I type 70 but this time instead of pushing Enter I press a button TAB the one above the caps lock with this way I locked the length but I can choose the direction I place the pointer more or less here

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type 30 and press Enter as you see it's quite simple then look at this different situation the line makes the same angle but in the opposite direction I do the same as before type the length then look at this label

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showing the current angle while I'm moving the cursor around its increasing until I reach half circle 180 degrees then it decreases as now it's showing the other side angle basically if I'm below the x-axis and type 30 the angle starts again in the same place but in a clockwise direction

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next to the line icon is the polyline a polyline is a connect sequence of lines created as a single object for example let's draw this exercise here I click in polyline choose a start point to draw the first line

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go up and make sure you have the polar mode switched on type 20 press ENTER then to the right I type 25 press ENTER again and finally vertically down this is important always click when the polar tracking is on the screen

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type 20 again press Enter and escape so if I click in the polyline it selects the full sequence as you see although I could use the command line to draw the same example all the lines would be considered as separate objects

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now that you know the basics to draw lines I want to introduce to you a very important function in AutoCAD object snap this will allow us to make our drawings with the maximum precision take a look at the next example let's draw it

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I can use either line or polyline command I choose polyline I'm going to type its shortcut PL draw the first line then the vertical one as there is no line to continue here I press escape now the third line has to be connected to this intersection

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I turn on the command line I move the cursor near the left end of this line and look at this Green Square appearing here saying endpoint the same happens when I go to the other side you can see it again

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if I click right now the next line starts automatically from that point and it means the three lines are now connected to each other type 25 and press Enter those squares only appear because the object snap is active

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it's this icon at the status bar at the arrow just next I can see the modes that are currently active you see here "endpoint" which is an extremity of a line segment now I'm going to introduce you also the midpoint

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first I'm going to click on it because is not active then I want to draw a line from the middle point of this one I activate the command line as you can see this triangle indicates the midpoint I click now and the next line starts exactly from there

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object snap tracking this is a very useful function and I will explain it with an example because I think it's easier to understand we have this example here and we want to draw this line which is located at a distance of 30 from the right

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I turn on the command line place the cursor on this endpoint drag left slowly so that I see this label that says extension in this moment if I type 30 the new line starts with that distance from the end point

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it's simple and with this we can avoid drawing extra lines then you just need to draw the remaining objects to connect this line with the rectangle below drag it down until I see this cross here now click and press escape

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another way to use object snap tracking can be when I am drawing this rectangle I can draw an extension line up from this point until I intersect a polar tracking of the line I'm making like this so these kind of things are very interesting to play around

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now you need to make a bit of practice to strengthen the knowledge you got in this video for that reason I prepared these exercises for you you can get them in PDF by clicking on the link available in the description

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PART 2 I am going to explain to you briefly more drawing commands rectangle a rectangle is in reality a polyline it's just a faster way to draw this kind of objects as I just need to specify two points

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I am going to show you the command is this one specify the first point and then I only need the opposite corner I can simply click to place it or insert the coordinates regarding the first point that's where I'm going to do

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the first blank is for the x axis type 40 then I press tab to switch to the second coordinate this one is for the y axis type 20 and press ENTER again in fact what I have done was inserting the length and the width

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simple however as I still have to take into consideration the UCS coordinates sometimes the values might be negative let's suppose I draw another rectangle but with the start point the x coordinates would be minus 40 click for this start point

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then type -40 press tab and as the y-coordinates are positive I type 20 here you have the result circle to insert the circle in AutoCAD I can click in this icon as I believe you guessed then just follow the prompts to draw the example here

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specify center point of the circle I click anywhere then specify radius of circle it is 20 I type that value and press Enter let's do the next now check out this tip as I want to use again the command circle

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press Enter the system automatically reactivates the previous action this is very important to know it saves time I am going to draw the same circle again now look to the prompt at the command bar "specify radius of circle or diameter"

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so instead of typing a radius I can switch to typing a diameter I do it by clicking on it or simply type the first letter "d" then press Enter as I'm drawing the same circle the value is 2 times the radius

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40 press ENTER again ok this is just one of the several ways to insert a circle if I click on the arrow below the icon you can see all these options available that depends the situation that you are drawing

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ARC an arc is a section of a circle and like the previous command there is an arrow below the icon with different ways of specifying points I'm going to draw the arc of this example above and the best option here is inserting the start

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point then the center and finally the end point by default autocad draws the arc in the clockwise direction let's click on the arrow then find "Start Center End" click on the endpoint of this line for the start point

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the centre is the intersection between both lines and finally the "endpoint" is this one see how the arc is being drawn clockwise modifying objects until this moment I taught you the most used commands to draw in AutoCAD in this section I will introduce to you commands that will help

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you in modifying objects and to be more effective while drawing I'm going to start with the basic ones to move an object to a different place for example want to move the small rectangle to a distance of 60 to the right

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click on the icon select the rectangle press enter specify a point from where I want to move the object then I moved to the right horizontally and type the distance of 60 press Enter in the following example I want to move the rectangle to the other box which is

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located at the same distance from the corner as here I activate move again I select the object press Enter but this time the best point it's going to be the corner then I click in the next corner to move it there

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this command works in the same way as the command move I'm going to copy the object to the first rectangle I use this base point then I can copy it in this intersection then I realize I can keep copying the object the number of times I want

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do you see? it's very nice this and when I'm done I press escape to rotate objects I can use this command let's see how it works I click on the icon select the objects press ENTER then I choose a base point

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where the objects can rotate around it as the polar tracking is on I'm going to rotate them 90 degrees to this side another situation the same objects are in this position if I try to rotate them back to the position they were before

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the polar tracking doesn't work this time however I can use a different way if you look to the prompt there is an option that says reference to use it I can either click on it with the mouse or type "r" usually the first letter

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is enough after I can specify a reference angle or draw a reference line let's draw a reference line I prefer this click here for the first point then for the second point I choose this end point finally I can rotate until the polar tracking

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appears now look at this polyline with the command offset I can inscribe that polyline inside with a specific distance that distance is called offset distance and it has a length of 10 in this example let's do it the icon "offset" is this one

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click on it then for specify offset distance I type 10 select the polyline I move the pointer inside and click there to draw the new polyline by the way if I click outside the area the new polyline offsets outside the original one the command offset can also be applied to

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lines if I have this line and apply offset to it a new line shows up parallel to the first one now I want to show you a situation that happens to a lot of people I'm going to draw a rectangle with the command line

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then I want to offset the lines like before I type "O" to activate the command specify the distance of 10 and when I click to offset I realize I can only click on one line at time and the result is different than when I applied

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to polylines however I can easily merge lines in a polyline there is a command for it join I type join or I can still find the icon on the modify panel here it's very simple select the lines to merge and press Enter

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as you see now I have a polyline finally if I do offset again the result will be identical as my first example command "trim" in AutoCAD we often need to cut parts of objects we have drawn before for that we can use the command trim let's check out how it works

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I'm going to start with a very simple example we have these lines and I want to erase this segment I click on the command trim is located there select both lines press Enter then if I drag the pointer over here the

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screen shows that this part will be erased the same happens when I move the pointer to the other segments I click on this one and you see it disappearing it's done to leave the command press Enter or escape

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look to the next example this time we have three lines I turn on trim again select all the objects and then I can erase any segment between an intersection as you see now suppose I want to erase all this part of the horizontal line

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turn on trim the vertical line on the right I don't need to select just the other two press ENTER and when I'm going to click on this line it erases everything from the intersection of the lines I have selected to the right

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maybe for this situation this didn't make a big difference but look at this case here I want to delete all this part of the line if I select everything then I need to erase one by one it takes a long time

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so it's better to only select the lines I'm going to use like this of course I can use trim not only for lines it works for other kinds of objects for example I want to change this drawing to that one

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I activate "trim" select everything press ENTER and finally click on the parts to erase extend this command is used to extend lines in the example here I want to extend this line to intersect the vertical line on the left I am going to click on the arrow located next to

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the command trim then I select extend first I have to select not the line that I want to extend but the one where the extended lines will connect so it's this one press ENTER then I select a line to extend

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to extend the line to the left I have to click on the left half in order to work look if I drag the pointer over the right half nothing happens I go slowly to the left and after passing the middle the extension appears again I click and press Enter

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in this example I want to extend all the vertical lines on both sides I type a X press ENTER select both horizontal lines press ENTER again to extend the lines up I can open a selection area to cover the upper part of all vertical lines I click

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then I do the same for the part below to extend the lines down when I finish I press ENTER to exit the command of course in this situation there is a faster proceedment by opening an area that covers both lines sides

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thatextends both parts in just one step mirror with this command we can copy objects symmetrically this is how it looks also when we need to make a symmetrical drawing we can just draw half of it and then use mirror in order to complete the process without spending time

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in drawing let's see how the command mirror works for these objects click on the icon select everything and press Enter then the prompt asked me to draw a mirror line I'm going to insert the first point at a distance of 20 from the objects

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I hope the mouse over this endpoint move right type 20 and press Enter I'm going to draw the line vertically and you can see everything reflected as a mirror I click for the second point now the prompt sentence says

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erase source objects I choose no to keep the original ones notice that all lenthss are kept including the distance between the objects and the mirror line now check out these considerations about command mirror it doesn't matter the length of the mirror line just the

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direction as you can see if I draw a long vertical line the result is the same only if I rotate it the objects are placed differently to make a symmetrical drawing I just need to draw half of it

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because if I draw a vertical mirror line in this endpoint the new mirrored objects connect to the original ones it's simple sometimes I don't want the original objects in the option" array source objects" I choose yes thats the result

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editing objects using grips the blue icons that show up when I select an object are called grips and they allow me to edit it when I select the line there are three grips if I click in one at the extremity I can change the position

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of that point keeping the other end in the same place if I click on the grip in the middle I can move the line without changing the length and direction now let's see some editing tips change the line length by moving one of the ends

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I'm going to click on this icon I'd rock left I'm going to type 10 and the line length increases to 80 of course this also works if I want to make the line shorter click again this time I drag right

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type 10 and the line returns to its previous size to type a new length to the line I click on the grip drag left and this time I press the buttom "tab" and the input switches to the full length

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I am going to insert 120 then let's check out how grips work on polylines the end grips of each line works in identical way I click on this one to change its position and you can see all the other vertex s don't move

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of course this may cause me to deform the polyline now I like the lines the grip on the middle has a rectangular shape I'm going to click on one and I can move that full line then the rest of the

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polyline has to adapt to its new position for example I move right type ten and you can notice this line increases ten of its total length so we reach the end of the second part of this tutorial now I prepared more exercises for you in order to practice what you have learned here

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the link is in the description of the video after don't miss the third part of this course as I will keep teaching very important features for beginners set up units work with layers plot drawing and more PART 3

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Until here, I taught you commands to draw objects and modify them But I haven't mentioned any units for the dimensions When I was drawing lines, I said: draw a line with dimension of 50 or 100.

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I didn't say if it was meters millimeters inches or feet But I'm going to talk about this now First of all AutoCAD uses adimensional units, this means that it's up to me to decide What is the unit of a line that has length of

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20, 50 or 100, it's very simple Let's suppose I want to make a project in millimetres. Thus the unit I usually work with I want to insert a line with 5 millimetres of length. I Draw the line as usual and when I want to set up the length, I type 5

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Then I'm going to insert the line that measures 1 meter. I Do the same but this time for the length, I type 1000 because as you may know one meter is 1000 millimeters Let's go to the unit properties window, I typed "units" and press Enter

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Here on the length section at the left, you can choose the format for units of measure If you work in millimeters or meters, you should use decimal units Instead in some countries is more common to use inches and feet. In this case

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engineering or architecture units are more suitable Below you can set the precision in this drawing I consider the units millimeters and I don't need decimals. So I choose the first option At the angle side, I can choose the units for angles

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Most of the time I use decimal degrees But there are others here that could eventually be more suitable for you The units in insertion scale are used only when I insert objects or drawings from a different file Usually when we start learning AutoCAD, I don't need to insert anything external

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But in my opinion it's better to specify the unit. I click on millimeters When I finish I click on OK to exit Layers Layers is how AutoCAD organizes objects, for example Have a look in this file here. I have two floor plans. It's a proposal for converting

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offices in flats. So instead of having the objects all together, I decided to organize them in different layers.

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I am going to click on this icon to open the layer properties manager Here you can see that I created layers to group different categories of objects for example I place the windows in one layer, the walls in another and I did the same for the doors

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text labels and so on There are also other advantages in using layers I can set up specific colors to distinguish them Another thing: for easy access I can drag this window to the left and then I click on this icon to hide it automatically

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Then I just need to drag over the tab to see the layers Now I am going to explain to you how we can work with layers and tell you some considerations new layer If I want to create a new layer, I click on a blank space on this window with the right

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button Then I click on new layer. Then I can set up a name for the new layer, for example "stairs" and if I click on the color for example, I can change it to the one that I want. I'm going

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to choose this yellow Under "linetype" I have a continuous line by default however, if I click on load I can find several line types, dashed lines or other formats Clicking on this light, I can turn off a layer

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For example, I'm going to turn off the layer doors and you can see those objects disappearing from the screen There is also the mode freeze. Even it looks like it has the same effect as turning it off Freezing a layer releases it from memory

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You can notice the difference in the performance when you work with very large drawings Especially freezing layers that contain lots of 3d objects Now suppose that I want to move these objects to the layers "stairs" I have to select them, go to the layer tab and

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Change to stairs You can see that they changed the color Then I want to draw a new line in a specific layer First, choose the layer and then I can draw the line It's simple. Always specify the layer before drawing, to avoid changing it after

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Isolate layers to isolate a layer I can click on this icon Then I click on one object of the layer that I want to isolate This operation locks all the objects inside the other layers meaning that I cannot edit

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them Now this is useful for me to modify objects from this layer "text" For example, I want to move all the text to the left. I activate the command move Open a selection window to select objects Click for a base point, move left and click again to

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restore all layers that were locked before. I click on the icon right below (unisolate).

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Layer 0 if I move the pointer over the layer properties You can check here the layer 0. This is the default layer anytime I start a new file In any project I recommend to keep this layer without objects

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You cannot rename it or delete it However, this layer can be useful for creating blocks, which is what I'm going to explain on the next section of this video Sometimes we draw something that it's easier if it would be a single unit, for example

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a door If we want to copy it: I have to select all the objects that compound the door If we convert all these arches to a block they act like a single object So I want to convert this door to a block

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as it's on the floor plan, to be easier to select it, I'm going to isolate the layer where the objects are located in Click on the icon isolate and click on any object of the door Press ENTER and the layer doors became isolated

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Let's use the command "copy" Now it's very easy to select only the door with a selection area. That's because all the other layers are locked Press enter and I can copy the door outside the plan Creating a block

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before creating a block I'm going to move these objects to the layer zero By doing that I can later move the block to the layer I desire and it gets its properties I Select the object and I'm going to click on the icon "create a block"

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the block definition window appears Here I can set up a base point for the door I choose this corner here Back to the window, I have to write the name for the block. I named it as "door" When I finish I click on OK

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So the block is created, if I click on any part of the door, you can see that this is now a single object Now I'm going to change the block to the layer that I want and you can see while I'm scrolling

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here It changes the color to match the new layer However, if I created the block with objects in another layer, for example "stairs" I'm going to create the block Then I'm going to change the layer of the block to another one

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But it keeps the properties of the layer "stairs" The layer 0, on the other hand means that the objects don't have any layer assigned Check out this example: add doors to the floor plan as you know, I have my new block here

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With the command "copy" I can insert them easily in the floor plan. I just have to click on the end points of these lines a great advantage of using blocks is the ease of a modifying them. I Go to this button that says edit block

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Then I choose the block "door". I click on ok This is the block editor workspace and also a new tab for editing blocks appeared on the ribbon Here I can make all the changes that I want to this block. For example. I'm going to draw

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a circle here Then I close the block editor and save the changes As you can see, all the block references of the block door have a circle inside Which can save amounts of time In this section I am going to explain how you can print in AutoCAD

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I know there are a lot of people struggling with this topic as it's a bit complex But I will explain the most important tips to make it as simple as possible First of all, look at the tabs located here

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The first one that says "model" is where we can make all the project This workspace seems to have an infinite area So we can make the drawings that we want. But of course the larger the file the slower

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the computer gets The tabs named "layout" are used for printing. I'm going to layout 1 Here there is a paper with a specific size and these drawings is what will be printed To print properly we should specify the paper size that we need

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I am going to click here with the right button and then click on page setup manager In this window I choose layout 1 and click on modify So here you have the page setup First we should choose the printer by clicking on this tab

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If we want to save a page in PDF, there are several options here Regarding the file size and print quality.

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I usually use this one "DWG to PDF" To change the paper size. I have to click on this tab. For this case, I want a for this one On "drawing orientation" I choose between landscape and portrait Finally click OK and close to save changes

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Now that we have the paper size we have to decide what we want to print on the paper Under layouts tab, there are two spaces: paper and model space. We can switch between them Currently we are in the paper space, if I apply zoom or move it works for the paper

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Notice this rectangle here where I have the drawings. It's a viewport and it's like an access to the project.

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I am going to double click inside and it switches to the model space now if I zoom in The paper doesn't move just the objects that I drew as well, if I draw a line here, it will appear exactly in the same place in the model tab

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Change the size of the viewport. I'm Going to click on model to switch to the paper space again at this moment I can select the viewport, then with the grips, I can modify it to cover the entire paper

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Double-click to go to the model space Now I can zoom in the drawing or put a specific scale for the paper It's here: I specified for example 1 per 100 When I finish I am able to print the drawing.

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Click here with the right button and this time I click on plot Continue to plot a single sheet here I can click on OK to print or in this case to export the file as a PDF Some printing tips

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Hide the viewport when I plot a file, the viewport appears by default on the paper If you want to hide it follow the next steps Go to the layer properties manager and create a new layer just for the viewport

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Switch to the paper mode click on the viewport and move it to its own layer Then go again to the layer properties and freeze the layer You can see that it's not appearing anymore So, if you save as a PDF or print the file right now, the viewport is not visible

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Have different colors on the viewport the default AutoCAD workspace uses a dark Background. The reason is to be better for the eyes when working for several hours Because of that it's common to use light colors in our project

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The problem is when we switch to the layout mode, The colors can be too light for a white paper For example, the doors are a bit hard to see Don't worry. It's possible to set up different colors for printing

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First, you have to double click on the viewport to switch to the model space Go to the layer properties and you can see this column with the label VP color If your version is not located next to the color tab. Look at the right end of this table

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Then I'm going to change the color for the layer doors Click here And put this one for example Now it's much better Insert text I am going to explain to you quickly to insert text in AutoCAD it's not hard and there are two types of text single line and

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Multi-line text I will start with single line text first We insert the start point then this line specifies our text height I Can either click or specify a distance I'm going to type 100 press ENTER and then I choose the direction

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If I want to type horizontal text, I need a horizontal line Now I can write anything and when I finish I click in a different place to write another text Or if I don't want more I can just press Enter or escape

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Now let's see the multi-line text Activate the command Choose the first point and I specify a selection area To fit the text in but just the horizontal length the height of the rectangle doesn't matter Then I can write the text

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Unlike the single text, this time a temporary tab for editing text appears on the ribbon Here I have options for editing a paragraph and much more If I want to change the height I need to select the text and change it here as

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You know, this is very simple to write text in AutoCAD PART 4 in this part I am going to teach how to scale objects how to attach an image to the drawing and apply a scale in order to have the

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real dimensions how to import a PDF file and is especially useful when the file was previously created within AutoCAD how to stretch objects and how to fill enclosed areas with the command hatch of course, as always I like to share some tips with you along with

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the explanations let's start scale objects let's learn how we can scale objects this command is not hard but you should understand it well if you want to use it properly to turn on the command scale click on the icon it's this one

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select the objects I want to scale in this case I want to scale the figure on the right choose this base point now there are several modes to scale objects the one by default is to insert a scale factor

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I am going to type "2" and the lengths of all these lines changed to double size okay I'm going to repeat the process but this time I want to shrink the objects to half size I type "SC" to activate the command again select the objects but now

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I don't select the dimension line for the scale factor I insert 0.5 and the lines were converted to half of the length that they used to have previously looked at this dimension and was updated even it was unselected

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scale with the reference now I'm going to show to you how to insert the scale with the reference I turn on again the command scale and select the objects select the base point looking to the command bar it

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says specify scale factor or these options copy and reference I'm going to use the shortcut R to use the reference and what I need to do here is draw a reference line and type the new lengths for it

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so it's very simple I click for the first point and then I click for the second point finally I type the new length which is 55 and press ENTER to confirm it use scale to import a PDF or attach an image

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in AutoCAD it's possible to insert an image to use as a background of a project for example images from Google Earth can be used to draw site plans to attach an image file I go to the insert tab at the ribbon click on "attach" and select an image from my computer

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I choose this one in this window I can set few options here it's important that I take on specify on screen the insertion point otherwise the image is inserted on the coordinates which are specified here okay except if

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it's exactly what you want I click on OK and now I click for placing the image and for the scale factor I'll leave it for now press Enter so what happens here most of the time that we insert an image it's not scaled

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properly for example I have a reference between these two points which is approximately 206.17 meters if I use the distance command I type the I press Enter I can notice that the distance here is a bit longer than what it should

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no problem I can use scale with reference I turn on the command scale select the image by clicking on the border if I click inside the image it doesn't work change the mode to reference and then I draw the line between those two points I

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will try to make it as accurate as possible now it should be correct ah and I want to share a tip with you always try to use a long reference line because if instead my reference was a short

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distance after scaling the image tends to be less accurate to import a PDF file I can click on the icon also located on the Search tab here I'm going to choose the file of the exercises then the window that opens

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has a bit more complex options than for attaching images actually this is a very useful function because if I insert a PDF that was previously created in AutoCAD I can recover all the layers and the objects as this PDF has two pages

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first I need to click on the one that I want to import on "PDF data to import" I tick on vector geometry to import the lines, polylines circles, arcs and so on if I tick on true type text text created with the font

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that has this symbol will be automatically recognized as text in AutoCAD most fonts available are "true type" so usually this is not a problem here the option below I tick on it if I have raster images attached in this case

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there aren't so I keep it unselected then on the right panel I take on the first option use PDF layers on the panel below you can find more options to add but for now let's click on OK and I am going to insert the file on the project

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nice now if I go to the layer properties I can see that new layers were created from the PDF and due to the fact that I made this drawing in AutoCAD the layers are the same from the original DWG file

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I'm going to check out how the objects look like and you can see here polylines among other objects also look how the text was recognized if the text was not on a true type font it would be splitted

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in very small lines and arcs which wouldn't be so interesting however not everything is perfect the dimension lines are not recognized neither block references which means I have to create them again but in general insert a PDF can be very useful just be aware it's only available in the

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versions after AutoCAD 2017 stretch objects sometimes in AutoCAD we need to stretch figures let's learn how it works first it's important to have in mind that this operation doesn't work for blocks as you can see here I have only lines and polylines let's do it

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I am going to click on the command stretch it's this icon here then I have to select the part to actually stretch so I open the selection from the right just until here then I specified this base point as you can see I'm extending and

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moving objects to this side and as the dimension line was in the selection it is also readjusting now I can click to place the objects exactly how it's on the screen however it's without any kind of precision or type a distance to

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extend if I type 800 actually I add that value to the original length of 600 and the total is 1400 the way that the objects stretch depend only on the selection even I select a different base point the result is the

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same let's repeat this again and this time I want to change the selection to cover also this line I press Enter and you can see the object stretching differently now I want to try to stretch vertically I select the objects press ENTER and

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Oh it's not as I was expecting but I select all the objects why does the why does this happen when I was doing the selection I kept these sides outside of the selection area and even everything was selected

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because the external rectangle is a polyline a single object the really important thing here is what actually I am covering with the area "Hatch" filling inVclosed areas in this section I will be talking about a drawing tool which is used to fill enclosed areas

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it's the command Hatch but first I am going to create a new layer in this file let's check out if you remember how to do it I go to the properties manager click with the right button in new layer I name it a simply "Hatch" then I'm going

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to choose a color for it for example this kind of pink okay now I'm going to turn on the command hatch it's located here at a drawing panel wait a few seconds if you want to read the description of this tool sometimes

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it can be interesting then to apply a hatch click on it and I have to click inside an enclosed area it can be any of these rectangles I click to fill this one ah it's in a white colour I forgot to change the layer yes when you create a

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new layer you still need to set it as the current layer before you draw the objects in otherwise it will not work go to the layer tab and click on hide hmm now I see this message appearing the current layer will be turned off what do

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you want to do for any reason this bulb is switched off and if I draw objects on that layer they will not be visible click to turn it on I'm going to repeat the process click on the comment hatch

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and fill that area now it's on the correct layer press ENTER to confirm them by dragging the mouse over you can see that it's a hatch object now I will show you another way to use hatch I click again here

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and then instead of pressing enter I feel a different area right away what happened is that both areas are now a single object Hatch editor above a new tab appeared at a ribbon specialized for editing hatches I'm going to show you

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briefly the functions here I'm going to click on this button at this panel and you can see a lot of patterns to use here the first one "solid" is the simplest one it fills the area with just one colour I choose for example this

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now let's have a look at the options at the side and these controls I change the scale look how is the effect on the angle tab above I can rotate the pattern finally on Hatch transparency I add a transparent effect to the objects

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I want to mention one thing when I first tried to change the scale by clicking on the controls I realized that these values didn't change a lot even if I type a number with decimals it shows just zero when this happens it means

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that I should go to the unit properties type UN and press Enter and in this tab I need to set decimals for example two decimal cases then it should work fine PART 5 In this part we will focus on the command array and in the tools at the utilities panel.

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Let’s start. Rectangular Array With the command array we can copy objects arranged in Pattern. There are 3 different modes (Rectangular array, Polar array and Path Array). I start with Rectangular array, and for that I just need to click on the button

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(that’s the mode set by default). I am going to select these objects and press enter. So, an array was generated and a special tab on the ribbon has appeared. Now I can edit this pattern as I wish. Here, I can set the number of columns and

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rows. If I decrease the no. of columns from 4 to 3, the last column is suppressed as you can see on the screen. The “Array Creation” I find it very intuitive.

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I think it’s easy to understand the options here (while looking to these little drawings).

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The distance between is the distance from the origin to the beginning of the next element.

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The distance total is from the origin to where the last element starts. simple. I am going to change the distance between rows: to 200, and look how the pattern moves.

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Of course the Total distance was updated in order to match the new distance between lines.

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To exit the “array mode” I press escape; Now If I want to confirm the distances; I can use the measure tool (or command distance) I type “DI” and press enter; Notice that the vertical lenth between two elements matches. As well as the horizontal one.

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Grips in an Array object Whenever I select an array you can see these dynamic grips (the blue buttons here), which I use then to modify this array. For example, if I click on this one on the second row. (Imagine the numbering of columns and rows

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in this way). I can change the vertical distance between 2 objects. For that, I simply type the new length. To change the horizontal length, on the other hand, click on this one.

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If I click on the grip at the last row, I can add more. For example I click to have 4 rows in total. Or… If I click on this side, it’s the number of columns that I can change. The grip on the opposite corner I can change

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both rows or solids by dragging the mouse. Basically these operations can also be performed on the Array tab, but sometimes it is just more practical.

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Another useful thing in Array is changing the basepoint. I click on this icon; set the new point, for example on the corner and.... The grips moved with the base point but they perform exactly the same actions.

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Let’s make a Polar array. I am going to draw a small circle with its center located at the boundary of this big one. On this side. Great. Now I can click on the command polar array. It’s this one here

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Basically, what I want to have this object displayed around. I click on it; then the “center point of array” is going to be the center of the bigger circle. It’s done, by default, the program sets 6 circles around by default.

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So the Array tab for “polar array” is a bit different, specially the panel “items”.

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On the first parameter: I set the number of Items, in this case I have 18. ...and… they cover all the circumference because I have 360º for the fill parameter.

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In “between” I specify the angle between 2 items and in this case it is 20º.

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If I try to change the angle to 30º, it doesn’t work. Because it won’t fit 18 items with that spacement. Let’s try 15, and what happened here? In order to keep 18 items, the angle on fill, was updated, now it is just 255.

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Grips on polar array and tips The small square on the original item allows me to change the radius of the array. I am going to set for example 50, and this is how it looks like. The grip on the center can be used to change

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the position of the Array. On the other hand, if I click on this little arrow, I change the angle between two items. Let’s suppose I want 6 items. The angle to have them distributed equally is 60º. However, it is possible to increase a bit

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that angle, but the last and first item will stay closer than the others. Path Array The 3rd Array mode available in Autocad is Path Array. We can copy objects along a line or curve. Let’s see how it is.

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First, I am going to draw a spline, which is a smooth curve. I click on the command located here “spline fit”. I can draw a curve by specifying some points (On spline fit, the curve crosses exactly the points that I insert). When I finish, I press enter.

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(pressing “escape” instead, cancels the command). Next, I draw a rectangle on the first endpoint of the spline. Now let’s use the Path array.

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I click on the icon: Select the object to copy; press enter; and then I select my path.

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So… I have made it, however probably I want to edit the spacement, position or rotation.

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At the command bar you can easily check out that there are several options to edit. Let’s analyse some of them. Base point.

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The base point will be exactly at the start of the path. I click on the option, then, I change , for example, the basepoint to the opposite corner and that is the result… the objects moved, but without rotating.

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Tangent direction. This one is useful if I want, for example,to have one of the rectangle edges, tangent with the curve.

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I am going to click on the button “tangent direction”. Then, just specify two points, and the objects will rotate. Great, but now suppose that I want the path to cross the center of the objects. I am going to use the option “base point” again and click on

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the center of the rectangles, (ahh it is not snapping to the center point!!). If this happens to you, it means that you should turn on the mode geometrical center in Object Snap. Now it is going to appear, I need to hoove the boundary first and click

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on the center to specify it as the new Base point. Array tab on the ribbon. The tab on the ribbon has, is now specific for path arrays (specially the first panel). I can change here easily the spacing between,

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total spacing and number of items. I think the best way to absorb these things is to simply practice. You can play around with all these options and after a while, it will be easy for you!

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Explode objects. Once I create an array, all the group is consider a single object. Now imagine that I want to get rid of the Array. It doesn’t work with just select it and press delete, it erases the whole thing. What I need here is the command

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explode. It basically returns a compound object to its original components. It is very easy to use this. I turn on Explode, select the array press enter, and as you see, all these are now separate polylines. Then I can manipulate the objects as my preference.

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Consequently, I can explode the polyline in separate lines. It’s also possible to explode a Block reference, into its original objects at the moment when I created it. Or a Hatch. But I can’t apply this on some objects, like text.

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Other ways to use explode is on Blocks Hatches and other kinds of objects But some of then, don't work, like text Utilities Panel Let’s talk about the utilities panel, and I am going to start with the measure tool. There are several ways of measuring as you

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can see here. I start showing you the first one: quick measure, which is the one set by default when you click on this button for the first time.

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When I move the mouse over the objects, some dimensions appear on the screen and the yellow lines measure vertical and horizontal distances between the closer objects. On the other hand if I try to check the dimensions in a circle, at the first time, it looks a bit confusing

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all these values here, but they just show the radius of the circle they indicate. For example, 100 is the radius of the bigger circle. As well as 15, is the radius of the small circle. (the yellow lines don’t measure anything here, don’t care about them).

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Honestly, this Quick Measure it is not my favorite. Because even it’s true that we can have a lot of information at the same time, it can be a bit confusing. But of course, that’s a just a personal taste. The icon distance, I use it a lot as I find

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it very intuitive. It simply measures the linear distance between two points. Another one which is very easy to use is “Radius”, I only need to click on a circle to check it out.

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Measure an Angle This one is simple, I can select two lines to measure the angle between them. Or, I can check out the angle of an arc by clicking on it. Now let’s go to where I was before, I want

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to focus on something. When I select the objects to measure the angle, this menu appears where I can choose from different types of measures. I am going to click for example in “area”, with this I can measure the area of the triangle. I just need to click on all the vertices and

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press enter and end. Then, you can see in this box the area and the perimeter.

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But, how could I measure the area of a circle since it doesn’t have corners. I click on the icon, then at the command bar I can switch to Object, I type “o” and press enter.

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Finally I just select the circle. Quick select. On the utilities panel, you can find other tools at the small icons at the right. The first one above is: “quick select” -> if I click there, I open this window where I can select objects by using filters. For example,

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I can specify a type of object; or select by color. Now I will select all the objects with color Cyan. Click on OK; and here it is. This is the only one in this color. Other options can be, select all the objects of a specific layer, or you select by linetype,

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you can explore the options here If I click on this icon I select all the objects in the workspace, except the ones that are frozen or on locked layers.

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The button below is the quick calculator. Actually It is a kind scientific calculator. we can do from basic calculations, to a bit more complex ones.

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PART 6 The final part! Dimension Lines Now I am going to teach you how to draw dimension lines.

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This is a classic feature for annotation in your drawings. In this figure you can see the dimension lines indicating its distances.

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To draw dimension lines, there is a panel on the home tab here, or if we go to the Annotation tab, we can have all the tools.

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So, There are several types of dimension lines, whose you can find them by clicking on this arrow.

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Let’s start with the most common one (linear dimension). To insert a dimension line I just click on two points, then I click again to put the dimension line on the place that I want.

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Great, even it seems quite simple; this is a quite complex feature in Autocad and we usually have to set up some settings.

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Sometimes the dimension lines are not proportional with the sizes of the objects that they measure.

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Let’s open the “dimension properties manager”, by clicking on this little arrow. Here we need to choose the dimension style that we want to edit.

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I select “standard”, which is the current one and I click on modify. Now there are loads of options here, but for a beginner the most importantare the size of the text and arrows,as well as the units.

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Go to “symbols and arrows” tab. -> look for arrow size and put the value that seems convenient.

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Then, the size of the text can be changed in the Text tab. As you see both sizes have a height of “2”.

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To want to confirm this, I can always measure the distance here. On the “primary units” tab, I can edit the unit format; the number of decimals (let’s change it to 2); and I can add a prefix or a suffix; for example, suppose the units here

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are in meters, I can type the symbol “m” on suffix to appear after the values.

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In this way. Other types of dimension lines: As I showed in the beginning, there are more types of dimension lines to use in Autocad, depending on what we want to measure.

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For example, let’s measure using the linear dimension, the distance between this point and this one.

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As you see, it is measuring either the horizontal distance, or the vertical if I move the pointer this way.

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Aligned dimension But this is all fine because I can insert an aligned dimension. With this option, I can measure objects that are not located in the cartesian axes.

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Angular dimension Now I am going to click on the Angular dimension. This one is still simple to use, I can measure an angle by clicking in two lines that intersect each other.

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The angle itself, I can place in any of the 4 sides of the intersection plane.

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Radius To measure the radius of a circle, first I am going to draw one here.

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Then, I choose the option to measure the radius, and just click on the circle.

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I click again to place the dimension line. In this tutorial I want to show you also the “arc length”.

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I can measure the distance of an arc. And yes. This only works on arcs; if I try to measure the perimeter of a circle, nothing happens!

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Apart from those styles, there is the automated dimension, which is this icon here. It detects automatically what is the most suitable type of dimension in each situation.

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For example if I hoove this line, this square appears. I can click on it and I will place the dimension of the length of this line.

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I can do the same for the other lines. For measuring an angle, I have to choose the option angular and then I can place it like I did previously.

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In a circle, the automated dimension, places the diameter by default. However, I can change to place the radius instead.

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Tips and peculiarities Dimlayer On this tab at the panel dimensions, I set the layer where I want the dimension lines in.

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I chose the layer “dimensions” as I created it specially for it. However, I am going to switch to the home tab, the current layer is “lines” and if I draw a dimension line, it goes automatically to the dimension layer.

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(which is great for the organization of the file). Snaps on arrows. In some versions of Autocad (like the one I am using) the system snaps to the endpoints, midpoints, geometrical centers on the arrow shape.

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And this is a bit annoying because usually I only want to snap to the end of the dimension line (this point).

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Honestly I haven’t figured out yet if there is a way to get rid of those snaps (if anyone knows, is welcome to post a comment on this video (it would help a lot of people).

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However, I am going to share with you a good way to deal with this.

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On “lines” tab (at the dimension style manager); click on the first arrowhead (and as you can see, in this list there are plenty of them to use; but for now I click on “none”), automatically the second arrowhead is updated to match the first one.

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The result is this. It is easier to snap to the endpoint. Additionally the distances “extend beyond dimension lines” and “offset from origin” are these ones that I show on the drawing.

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Put “zero” for both, and it is even better. Now I can only snap to the dimension line end and to the intersection with the line below.

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Basically, you can make all your projects with these settings, and just edit the style according to your preferences when you finish.

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The dimensions will be all updated. ----------------------------- Choose style of dimension line before drawing. whenever we draw a dimension line, we should make sure that the desired dimension style is active.

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For example, I am going to switch to “annotative”, and as you see, the settings there are different.

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Another thing, what I have been teaching during this tutorial are the standard dimensions. All the sizes that we set on the Dimension style manager are according to the workspace.

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The annotative dimensions are the styles which are represented with this icon here. The sizes that we set, are according to the real size of the dimension lines on the paper that we print.

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I will skip the annotative dimensions on this tutorial, but if you are curious, Click on the card that is appearing now.

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So we have reached the end of this tutorial. Now you have to practice the knowledge that you got here but of course there is a lot more to learn in Autocad have a look in the channel CAD in Black and check out the playlists there

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maybe you find something that suits you. Thank you very much for watching and see you next time!

Topics:AutoCAD tutorialAutoCAD for beginnersAutoCAD 20202D drawingAutoCAD commandsAutoCAD shortcutsAutoCAD interfaceCAD tutorialpolar trackingmouse functions AutoCAD

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use this tutorial if I have a different version of AutoCAD?

Yes, the tutorial uses AutoCAD 2020 but explains commands and shortcuts that are consistent across different versions, making it easy to follow regardless of your version.

How do I draw a horizontal line in AutoCAD?

Activate the line command by clicking the icon or typing 'L' and pressing ENTER. Start the line, then drag the cursor to the right with polar tracking enabled to snap the line horizontally.

What is the difference between the blue and green selection boxes in AutoCAD?

A blue selection box requires the entire object to be covered to select it, while a green selection box selects objects if any part of them is covered.

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