After spending countless hours in front of AutoCAD working on a project, youre bound to have your

own set of favorite commands to standardize a few steps. We also bet that you dont have them all
memorized or often forget them. To help you remember, we've made a list of 50 commands that can help
you speed up your work game, discover new shortcuts, or come in use as a handy tool for when you
forget what the command you need is called.
The following listing was developed and corroborated by our team for the 2013, 2014 and 2015 versions
of AutoCAD in English. We also prepared a series of GIFs to visualize some of the trickier ones.
When youve finished reading, we would love to know what your favorite commands are (including those
that we didnt include). We will use your input to help us update the article!
APPLOAD
Defines which applications to load when starting / opening AutoCAD. Very useful if AutoCAD and your
computer dont get along so well.
AREA

Calculates the area and perimeter of a defined object or a surface that you select vertex by vertex,
according to the metric units defined in settings.

BACKGROUND

Choose a background image for the work area. It can be a single color (Solid), a gradual color (Gradient)
or an image (Image) from your computer.

BMPOUT

Generates a bitmap image (.bmp format) after selecting a series of objects, surfaces, or regions.

BOX

Creates a 3D box, defining height, width and depth.

BURST

Explodes a block or an object, but keeps its attributes intact after exploding it. Highly recommended.

CHSPACE

Moves objects from the layout to the model, and vice versa. The best part is that the objects are scaled
automatically in the new space.

CLOSEALL

Closes all open AutoCAD windows. If there are changes to any of your files that you havent saved yet,
you will be asked if you want to save them. Unlike QUIT, you wont exit AutoCAD with this command,
just return to Start.
COLOR

Choose a layer color for future objects, lines and surfaces.

DIMALIGNED
Creates a dimension aligned with an axis / line.

DIMANGULAR

Creates a dimension aligned with an arc or circle.

DIMBASELINE

Creates a linear, angular or coordinate dimension, starting from a baseline of an earlier dimension.

DIMRADIUS

Creates a radius dimension for circles and arcs. Not to be confused with DIMANGULAR and
DIMBASELINE.

DIMTEDIT

Edits the text location of existing dimensions.

EDGESURF

Creates a three-dimensional polygonal mesh.

EXPLODE

Breaks up an object or block into each of its individual components. Before using, make sure youre on
the right layer.

ID

Displays the coordinates of any point on the worksheet.

LIGHT

Manage lights and lighting effects on 3D models. You will most likely be prompted to change the
viewport, or turn off the default lighting.

LINETYPE

Create, organize, and select line types.

MATLIB

Import and export materials from and to a library.

MLINE
Creates multiple parallel lines.

MLEDIT

Edit multiple parallel lines.

MULTIPLE

Repeats the next command until you cancel (Esc)

MVSETUP

Sets up the layout of a drawing.

OOPS
Restores the most recently deleted items. Its advantage over U is that you can use it after using BLOCK
(or WBLOCK, export selected items to a new .DWG file), because those commands can delete selected
objects after creating a block.
Unfortunately, you cant use OOPS after PURGE.

OVERKILL
Cleans up your drawings. It goes over your entire model and deletes any duplicate or overlapping items.
An incredible help for those who are obsessed with order and clarity in planimetry.

PAGESETUP

Specifies the page layout, plus the plotting device, paper size, and other settings for each new layout.

PFACE

Creates a 3D mesh vertex by vertex.

PREVIEW

Shows how the drawing will look when printed or sent to a plotter. Before you do this, you need to have
configured the layout of the page (PAGESTEUP).

PURGE
Remove unused objects in the drawing you are working on, through a series of filters: blocks, layers,
materials, thickness of lines, texts, among others.

QDIM

Quickly creates a dimension, after selecting objects.

QLEADER

Quickly creates a leader, and a leader annotation.

QSAVE

Autosave the file. Very useful when AutoCAD stops working and youve gone hours without saving any
work. If you havent named the file yet, its the same as SAVEAS.
QSELECT

Quickly select objects according to a list of available filters: colors, line type and layers, among others.
RECOVER

Recovers a damaged file.

RENDER

Creates a render of the model you're working on.

REVOLVE

Creates revolved solids (3D) by rotating 2D objects around a user-defined axis.

RULESURF

Creates a surface that joins two curves previously defined by the user.

SAVEALL

Automatically saves all drawings you are working on.

SHOWMAT

Displays a set of information for a selected object, including line thickness, color, dimensions, radius, and
area.

SKETCH

Create a series of freehand drawing segments.

SPELL

Checks the spelling in texts using the language settings from your operating system, not AutoCAD.

SUBTRACT

Creates a region from a solid, surface, or region by subtraction.

TABLET

Calibrates and configures a tablet or Wacom.

TIME
Displays a statistics table of the file you are working on: creation date, last update, and edit time. If youre
interrupted, you can activate / deactivate the stopwatch.

The same as Ctrl + Z, undoes the most recent operation.

UNDEFINE

Deletes an AutoCAD command, even this one. If you want to reverse your decision, REDEFINE.
VPORTS

Manages AutoCad windows for 2D and 3D models.

XLINE

Creates an infinite line.

3DSOUT
Export a file compatible with 3D Studio (.3ds format).