TIPS FOR WORKING FASTER IN AUTOCAD

Working faster is not simply beneficial for finishing school projects and exams by
deadlines, but also very important to employers for whom efficiency and production
speed are critical to cost effectiveness and business success.
1. Try to develop a preference for invoking commands at the keyboard rather
than selecting icons in ribbon panels or items in menus. Its much faster. Of
course you need to learn the command aliases, but theyre usually very simple
(e.g., L = Line, M = Move, EX = Extend, etc.). A very efficient AutoCAD user uses
only the keyboard and essentially a blank screen except for the drawing itself.
2. When a command is invoked, apply it as many times as you can before
going on to something else. Offset a number of lines at the same time, delay
trimming lines until you have a number of them ready to trim at the same time,
etc.
3. Try to think ahead as you draw. This will enable you to do more things at the
same time, and it will reduce downtime needed for thinking before proceeding to
the next task. Dont underestimate the importance of a lost minute here or
there. You should be drawing almost continuously. Brain, hand, and computer
should work together. Its sometimes fastest to invoke a command without
knowing exactly how you will proceed to apply it prompts will usually enable
you to make decisions as you go.
4. To trim overlapping lines at corners, use the Fillet command with a 0
radius. If the fillet radius is set to round corners, remember that you can hold
down on the Shift key to use Fillet as though the radius were set at "0" even
though it is not. You will save the time required to reset the radius.
5. Be resourceful. Every command makes it faster to do something. Practice and
remember such commands as Mirror, Stretch, Array, Break at Point, Join, etc.
Remember the Copy option in the Rotate command, that there are many ways of
drawing circles and arcs and ellipses, that its often faster to select a large
group of objects and then remove one or more from the selection set than it is to
select one object at a time, etc.
6. Keep in mind what it is that you are drawing so that things make the most
sense. Try to draw walls, stair risers, pipes, bolts, property boundaries, etc.
and not simply lines. If you do that, you will expect things, have a better sense of
their appropriate line weights and forms, and not miss things that on reflection
you realize should have been obvious.

7. Often Copy and Paste objects rather than recreating them from scratch. Even
objects as simple as circles are often copied more quickly than drawing each one
individually.
8. Copy and Edit label and note text, leader lines, and arrows rather than reinvoking the Text or Multileader command and taking time to go through the basic
options. Leader lines can very easily be adjusted by manipulating the grips.
9. If a line or other object is drawn incorrectly, think first of correcting it by
manipulating its grips. Its usually much faster than deleting it and redrawing it
correctly. Dont go slow for fear of making mistakes.
10. Avoid switching back and forth between layers. Create everything on the
layer that most objects will be on, then at the end reassign objects to the correct
layers. Reassign one object, and use Match Properties to reassign all other
objects that should be on the same layer.
11. Compete with yourself to increase drawing speed and efficiency. Class drawing
assignments are scored without consideration of the time it took you to complete
them. But in an office situation you probably will not be able to work on projects
at home or at open office times. If you must work over lunch breaks and after
others have gone home, its probably most likely that sooner or later you will
choose an occupation thats less demanding.
12. Even if not explicitly instructed, start with a template (if allowed and
appropriate). It probably has layers already created, the viewport is probably preassigned to a non-plot layer, etc.
13. Sit upright in front of the computer. Its probably impossible to slouch and at
the same time work competitively, efficiently, and fast. You need to get
involved in every possible way. AutoCAD and design industry work is not
predominantly repetitive or mindless by nature. It involves challenges and
concentration and requires strict attention and often great $$$ penalties if
forgotten or avoided.