The AutoCAD Resource

CADTutor delivers the best free tutorials and articles for AutoCAD, 3ds Max and associated applications along with a friendly AutoCAD forum and an AutoCAD FAQ. If you need to learn AutoCAD, you're in the right place. Visit the AutoCAD tutorials page for more information or see our tip of the day to start learning right now!

Free Tutorials and More

The Tutorials section provides over 80 original tutorials for AutoCAD, 3ds Max and other design applications such as Photoshop and Bryce. Michael’s Corner is a monthly article that brings you the best up-to-date AutoCAD tips and tricks. The CADTutor Forum is a lively bulletin board where AutoCAD users can ask questions and get answers. The Download area provides free AutoCAD blocks, free AutoLISP routines and free digital images.

Site News

Michael’s Corner - November 2008

Actions and Edits

November is the month (at least here in the northern hemisphere) when the days get noticeably shorter and many of us will be leaving work of an evening in the dark.

So, to brighten up your day, CADTutor brings you another helping of tips, tricks and insights from Michael Beall.

The November Corner has lots to commend it. Those of you who have yet to dabble with the new Action Recorder in AutoCAD 2009 will get a useful introduction. There is also a nice little trick with alternate units and… well, why not take a look for yourself.

Image of the Week - 12th May 2008

Image of the Week is a new feature that showcases some of the best work from our forum members. Each week, a new image will be displayed here on the homepage. If you'd like to see your work displayed here, why not join the forum and submit your best images.

New FAQ Section - 1st February 2008

I am very pleased to announce the launch of the CADTutor AutoCAD FAQ. The idea is to provide model answers to the most frequently asked questions about AutoCAD. It's a fantastic new resource that will continue to grow in the future. I hope you find it useful. The FAQ has been developed with the help of some of our most gifted forum members and I am very grateful to them. Do let us know what you think of our latest endeavour.

Currently Active Threads

This Week’s Hot Threads

Tip of the Day

Command line in a window (F2)

The command line can be very useful, especially for beginners because AutoCAD often gives useful promtpts which helps when learning how to use some of the more complicated commands. The command line is also used by AutoCAD to report information back to the user, but sometimes that information may run to several lines of text, and disappear from view. A good example of this is the Distance command (you can run this from the keyboard by typing DIST). The problem is that by default, the command line is only two lines high and so if you use the Distance command, you don't even see the distance reported to the command line.

One way round this problem is to increase the depth of the command line to show more lines but this takes up valuable drawing area. A better solution is to display the command window using the F2 key on the keyboard.

As you can see above, the command window also allows you to scroll back through the command line so that you can review your recent drawing history.

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.