11. Command Line Docking

When it comes to how you want to view your Command Line, much like the old hamburger ad campaign stated, you can have it your way.

Using a left click press and hold on the left edge of default Command Line display, feel free to pull it off the bottom edge of the drawing editor. Make it shorter or larger by dragging an edge. If you want to put it back at the bottom, simply drag it back. When you get close enough, it will snap back into place for you.

Maybe you’re like me and prefer the old school “in-line” display. This time, when you drag the Command Line, move it below the bottom edge, and it will be incorporated into the interface, now in its full view state.

Either view will dock on any edge, so set it up how it works best for you. Or others! By that I mean that many of us who use a projected image of AutoCAD when teaching a class will place the Command Line at the top, where it can be seen easier by the students.

12. Status Bar Contents

The Status Bar doesn’t display everything by default. Click on the customization icon in the lower right. Some people like to call this icon “the hamburger” (uh oh, do I feel a theme building or would that be considered cheesy?)

If an entry doesn’t have a check mark, it is not currently displayed. Simply click on it to add it to the Status Bar. Conversely, there may be items that you don’t use. Do you never have the need to draw in Isometric mode? Save some space for something else by unchecking it here.

13. Ribbon Panel Options

Similar to the Status Bar, your Ribbon doesn’t show everything by default. To manage your Tabs and Panels, right-click anywhere on the Ribbon to display two tools which display the available Tabs or Panels, and their visibility status. Much like the Status Bar, turn them on or off as needed.

Perhaps there’s a tool that you’ll need to access often, but your workflow requires you to change tabs often, adding an extra and unnecessary step of changing tabs constantly. You can do a left-click press and hold on any black spot of a Panel, and drag it off the Ribbon and let it “float” elsewhere.

When you’re done, you can click on the small icon in the upper right corner of the floating panel to return it to the position it was in on the Ribbon prior to floating it.

14. Maximize Viewport

Do you ever need to work within a Paper Space viewport, but it’s rather small and your space is limited? You can maximize a viewport to fill the entire drawing editor. Simply double click on any edge of the desired viewport, and just like that, it expands to full view.

Your visual clue is the large blue border that AutoCAD will display around the editor. Time to return to normal? Just double-click anywhere on the blue border.

15. Model Space Viewports

Viewports aren’t just for Paper Space. This customization is extremely useful if you ever work in 3D. From the View tab of the Ribbon, expand the Viewport Configuration tool in the Model Viewports panel. Select from eleven preset layouts.

Unlike Paper Space viewports, they are always tiled in Model Space. Just single click inside of any viewport to activate it. In the configuration shown below, it might be used to set one to be a top view, another a front view and another would be a side view.

When you need to get back to normal, click on the Single option of the configuration pulldown, and the currently active viewport will display normally.

16. Startup Switches

Customizing AutoCAD can be done outside of the interface as well. Did you know there are a number of things that you can have AutoCAD do when you double click on its desktop icon? They’re Command Line Switches, and (properly) adding them to the program’s icon can greatly increase your efficiency.

You can tell AutoCAD to use a particular profile when it starts. You can specify a Sheet Set or a Template to start with. Maybe you want to run a particular Script or not display the splash screen — you can do that, too!

Explore all of the available switches by clicking on this link to the reference table.

17. WYSIWYG

In most modern graphics programs, you work in a What You See Is What You Get, or WYSIWYG environment. AutoCAD, as you know, displays in colors, then translates those colors or objects into the desired printed form. We use the Preview function to see what it will look like.

But you can have AutoCAD display as WYSIWIG, and it’s as easy as clicking a single check box. From the pen assignments panel in the Page Setup dialog box, check Display Plot Styles.

Having set this, you can see in our sample drawing below, the CTB/STB style of color display, verses the WYSIWYG style. I know of some firms that set an extra layout tab to display this way all the time.

18. Tool Palettes From Design Center

Ah, we’ve come to the CAD Manager’s best friend. Tool palettes are an incredible design aid, and using them is fast and easy, as long as they’re already set up and ready to go.

This is where the AutoCAD Design Center comes in. Do you need to create a tool palette of hundreds of blocks? Fire it up, navigate to either the folder or file that contains your blocks, right-click and tell it to create a tool palette. Easy peasy. Read all about it in the link below.

For all my CAD Manager readers out there, I’m sorry for giving away one of our behind the curtain secrets.

19. View Transitions

The AutoCAD drawing editor has improved its graphics in recent years. One of those improvements is the default ability to see the transition from one fiew to the next. You know, you zoom into an area, and you see the graphics zoom to, or transition to the new view. These are called Zoom Transitions and are controlled by a system variable called VTENABLE.

To speed things up, you can turn this feature off by setting that varialbe to zero. Below are two animations. The top one shows the default transition settings, and the bottom one performs the same zoom with it turned off.

20. Options Dialog

Oh, there’s so much more. But I’m at 20, so it’s time to move on for me. But you can find all kinds of other ways to customize AutoCAD from the Options dialog.

Click on the Display tab, and you’ll find that four of the six panels directly affect how you view and interface with AutoCAD. Do you like to have scroll bars displayed, and do you prefer for your crosshairs to be full screen? You can find those options and more here.

That’s All Folks

Hopefully between this blog and the last, you’ve found a little nugget or two that will make your AutoCAD sessions work a bit more like you do.

To paraphrase an early AutoCAD influencer, until next time “keep on customizing.”

More Tuesday Tips

Check out our whole Tuesday Tips series for ideas on how to make AutoCAD work for you. 

The post Top 20 AutoCAD Customizations – Part Two: Tuesday Tips With Frank appeared first on AutoCAD Blog.

Whether you’re working solo or across distributed teams, AutoCAD 2027 is designed to help you create with greater clarity, speed, and control. If you’re eager to explore the latest AI-powered capabilities introduced in this release, open the Autodesk Access application to start your update now!

Work smarter with Autodesk AI

AutoCAD 2027 introduces a new level of AI-powered workflows that help reduce friction and surface the right guidance at the right time.

New Autodesk Assistant (tech preview)

Autodesk Assistant delivers intelligent, in-context guidance powered by Autodesk AI without disrupting your design flow, helping you and your team maintain consistency and quality with less manual effort. In AutoCAD 2027, you can use conversational prompts to validate drawings against your organization’s own CAD standards, by uploading a reference file and checking designs against it, helping to surface CAD standards issues earlier and making it easier to catch problems during the design process.

This experience is enabled by Autodesk Assistant beginning to leverage Model Context Protocol (MCP), which helps it better understand what you’re working on and what you’re trying to accomplish. This enables more situational, relevant responses directly inside AutoCAD. In this release, that capability is focused on alignment with CAD standards.

A truly collaborative design experience

As projects grow more complex and teams become more distributed, collaboration can’t be an afterthought. AutoCAD 2027 delivers new ways to work together securely and in parallel across desktop, web, and mobile.

Forma Data Management Essentials now included with a standalone subscription

With AutoCAD 2027, Forma Data Management Essentials is now included with standalone AutoCAD subscriptions, representing a significant added value for AutoCAD users. With this release, Forma is no longer a future vision: it’s now here, across the AutoCAD features you and your team use every day.

In AutoCAD, Forma Data Management Essentials enables essential collaboration in a shared project environment where teams can view and markup 2D and 3D models, track issues, apply folder-level permissions, and share files with controlled access and clear version visibility. This brings cloud-based DWG storage, version history, and access control directly into AutoCAD workflows that you’re already familiar with.

Whether you’re a drafter, designer, architect, engineer, or a CAD manager, it is well suited for small and mid-sized architecture and engineering firms, civil design practices, specialty consultants, and growing teams that need more structured collaboration and improved information exchange across projects.

Shared drawings managed in the cloud can now take advantage of advanced collaboration features like Checkout, multi-user markup, and Connected References, supporting parallel work while keeping your data easily accesible.

Introducing Checkout: Parallel work without the conflicts

Checkout finally introduces a new way for teams to collaboratively make controlled edits to the same DWG file at the same time when stored in Forma Data Management. Instead of locking entire drawings, contributors can check out only the geometry they need to modify, letting you make changes in an isolated editing environment and safely merge them back when you’re ready.

The result? No more unnecessary extra files just for editing, no accidental overwrites, and smoother collaboration especially on complex drawings with multiple contributors.

Connected References and Connected Support Files

Managing references and support files is easier and more reliable with deeper cloud connectivity in this release.

Connected References reserve Xref integrity for drawings stored in Forma Data Management. When referenced files are moved or renamed, AutoCAD detects the change and suggests automatic repairs directly from the Xref palette. With a single click, all your references can be restored.

Connected Support Files give CAD managers centralized control over cloud-managed support files, now enhanced to support tool palettes and CUI customizations for greater flexibility. With project-aware tool palettes and CUI, the right resources load automatically with each drawing, improving consistency and scalability across teams. In Forma Data Management, support files can be managed directly through the .autodesk.support folder within a project via a new “Manage Support Files” button that launches a configuration dialog.

Cleaner drawings, faster workflows

AutoCAD 2027 continues to focus on everyday productivity, helping you spend less time fixing issues and more time designing.

Automatically find and fix errors with Geometry Cleanup

Geometry Cleanup automatically identifies common geometry issues such as gaps, overshoots, undershoots, and misaligned angles, then suggests targeted fixes to resolve them. By streamlining error detection and correction, this tool reduces manual cleanup, improves drawing quality, and makes files more reliable for downstream workflows.

Performance and visualization improvements

Expanded support for the Graphics System Framework (GSF) improves performance and reliability across AutoCAD’s 3D workflows. With smoother navigation, broader 3D coverage, and support for Realistic visual styles, materials, and lighting, AutoCAD 2027 delivers more consistent and responsive 3D visualization.

Stronger workflows with AutoCAD on the web

AutoCAD on the web continues to evolve into a powerful extension of desktop workflows, especially for collaboration and coordination.

Issues, plotting, and sheet set improvements

• Forma Data Management Issues integration allows you to view, create, and resolve issues directly within drawings, keeping feedback visible and actionable.

• Plot improvements make it easier to save plots directly to the cloud, rename files, choose storage locations, preview PDFs, and confidently deliver final output.

• Sheet Set Manager improvements fully adopt Connected Support Files, with enhanced templates, workflows, and reliability that make sheet management better suited for everyday production work.

Integration with Forma Board

Included as part of access to Forma, AutoCAD on the web now integrates with Forma Board, connecting detailed CAD drafting with collaborative early-design workflows. Teams can view and edit DWG files within a shared canvas, keeping documentation aligned with concept development and design storytelling from early planning through detailed design.

Start exploring AutoCAD 2027

AutoCAD 2027 is more than a feature update. It’s a step towards a more connected, intelligent, and collaborative design experience. From Autodesk AI-powered assistance and cleaner drawings to cloud-enabled collaboration across desktop, web, and mobile, this release is designed to help you work with confidence at every stage of your project.

Download a 15-day free trial of AutoCAD 2027 today and see how these new capabilities can help you focus on what matters most: creating better designs, faster.

The post AutoCAD 2027: Redefining How You Create, Collaborate, and Deliver appeared first on AutoCAD Blog.

With that said, I present to you my list of top AutoCAD customizations for non-programmers. In this two-part series, the first 10 are included today. In no particular order, let’s kick it off.

1. Quick Access Toolbar

Keep your most frequently used tools in the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) at the top of your screen. Customize the QAT by clicking the small, pull-down control button on the right.  You can check and un-check the commands you want quick access to.

For a fast way to add a Ribbon command to the QAT, right-click any command icon on the Ribbon, and then select Add to Quick Access Toolbar from the pop-up menu. Similarly, right-click on any Quick Access Toolbar item to remove it.

2. Clean Screen

Need to max out your screen space? CTRL-0 is your friend. The Ribbon and Palettes will be hidden, and AutoCAD will maximize to fill the entire screen. The QAT will remain on, so make note of the previous tip.

CTRL-0 again to toggle it back. Of course, you can use the icon on the status bar as well.

3. Anchor Palettes

AutoCAD’s many palettes are wonderful productivity enhancers, but not so great when they get in your way. Keep your favorites available with a simple mouse rollover by anchoring some left and some right.

They take up almost no space when anchored, so you can still access their functionality while keeping your drawing editor clean and visible.

4. Right-Click Delay

Do you still use your mouse right-click as Enter? If you’re not using the contextual pop-up menus when you right-click, you’re missing out on one of my favorite productivity enhancements.

If you just can’t give it up, you can still have the best of both worlds by utilizing the time-sensitive right-click feature.

You’ll find its control in the Options dialog, and when enabled, right-click will still function as you prefer, but now, by holding down the mouse button just a little longer, you’ll get the contextual pop-up menu instead.

5. Command Alias

An AutoCAD command alias is a shortened name or abbreviation of a command name. Don’t like a default alias name? Change it! It’s easy. For example, a lot of people prefer C to be Copy instead of Circle. Does one of your often-used commands not have an alias? Add it yourself.

Aliases live in a file called acad.pgp. And here’s the thing – it’s your .pgp file, not anyone else’s, so you can define them as you please.

I’m a firm believer that using aliases and keyboard shortcuts, in conjunction with not taking your eyes off your work, is the best way to increase your speed and efficiency. Personally, I like to keep my most-used aliases mapped to the left side of the keyboard. That way, I don’t have to take my hand off the mouse or my eyes off my work to find a letter on the right side of the keyboard.

6. Places

Stop wasting time by continually navigating multiple levels of folders in the File Open dialog box. Once you get to your folder, add it as a new entry in the Places pane of the Open dialog.

Click on “Tools” in the upper-right corner, then select “Add Current Folder to Places.” A new icon will appear with the name of the folder. Now you can click on your new Place to jump right to that folder.

If you find that you have multiple icons with the same name – “CAD,” for instance – just right-click on the icon, select Properties, and change the name to something that makes more sense, such as the project name.

7. Ribbon States

The Ribbon doesn’t have to take up so much real estate. You can minimize it down to either panel buttons, panel tabs, or just titles. Decreasing the Ribbon’s footprint doesn’t affect its functionality, and it may just improve yours.

8. Floating Editor

Have you ever had to work on one drawing while referencing another? You might want to take advantage of pulling your file tab off of the application, and to another location (such as another monitor).

Don’t worry about losing any functionality either. The floating window has its own Command Line, and you can still use the Ribbon and Quick Access Toolbar from the main application while in your active floating window.

When you’re done, use the title bar to drag it back to the file tabs area, or if you prefer, you can right-click the title bar, where you’ll find commands to either move it back.

9. Multiple Workspaces

Do you work in multiple ways in AutoCAD? One day, you’re doing schematic drawings, such as wiring diagrams, and the next, you’re laying out 3D piping.

Set up a separate workspace for your various workflows, containing the tools and palettes you need for the job.

10. Command Line Options

AutoCAD’s Command Line is no longer just a utilitarian device to input commands. Now, it’s a multi-functional digital assistant that you can customize to match your preferences.

Click on the wrench icon, and you can find tools to change your input settings, prompt history, and search options. It’s all just a wrench-click away!

What’s Next?

Stay tuned for the next installment to learn more AutoCAD customizations!

More Tuesday Tips

Check out our whole Tuesday Tips series for ideas on how to make AutoCAD work for you. 

The post Top 20 AutoCAD Customizations – Part One: Tuesday Tips With Frank appeared first on AutoCAD Blog.

What Is a Block?

A block is a collection of one or more objects combined into a single object. Once created, that block can be inserted multiple times into a drawing as individual block references, all tied back to the same underlying definition.

You’ll commonly see blocks used for items such as:

• Furniture and fixtures
• Mechanical or electrical symbols
• Standard parts and components
• Detail callouts and title blocks

Using blocks offers several key advantages. Blocks help maintain consistency across drawings by ensuring uniformity for repeated elements such as symbols, parts, and title blocks. They also make editing and placement faster, since blocks can be inserted, rotated, scaled, moved, and copied much more efficiently than working with individual objects. Any changes made by editing or redefining a block are applied instantly to all of its references in the drawing.

You can also include data such as part numbers, costs, service, dates, and performance values to blocks. The data is stored in special objects called block attributes. Finally, using multiple block references instead of duplicating object geometry helps reduce overall drawing file size.

How to Insert a Block

There are four key items involved when inserting a block into a drawing.

#1. Block Definition

This data is stored in a drawing file or drawing template file in a non-graphical format. Block definitions can easily be created or imported from any drawing file. Multiple block definitions can be created in a drawing file.

Note: Block definitions don’t always need to be created just in the drawing that they will be used. A drawing file itself can represent a block definition that can be shared with other designers and inserted into any open drawing file.

#2. Block Reference

When you insert a block, you specify which block definition to create an instance or block reference from. The graphics for the block reference are drawn based on the block definition. A drawing file can also be inserted into an open drawing, when this happens a block definition based on the geometry in model space of the drawing file being inserted is created in the target drawing and then a block reference is created.

#3. Block Insertion or Base Point

When you insert a block, you specify an insertion point for the block in the drawing. The insertion point is based on the block’s base point, this is the point of the block reference attached to your cursor.

The base point is circled on the block below. Later, if you select a block that’s already been inserted, it displays a grip at the base point. You can easily move and rotate this block using this grip.

#4. Block Insertion Tool

Several different block insertion tools are available in AutoCAD including:

• Block gallery on the ribbon
• Blocks palette
• Tool Palettes window
• DesignCenter

These block insertion tools allow you to insert block references from the definitions created within the current drawing as well as insert drawing files stored on your local workstation or a shared network location.

See How to Insert a Block

Keep Going

Ready to try out how to insert a block for yourself? Check out the AutoCAD Foundations page with exercises to get started.

The post How to Insert a Block: AutoCAD Foundations appeared first on AutoCAD Blog.

But it doesn’t behave like a rectangle. Grip edit a corner and end up with a weird trapezoid shape. Maybe you’ve created a slot-shaped object using the Fillet command trick that I showed you in this post. Again, you don’t want it to lose its slot shape when you edit it. But, as the animation below demonstrates, that’s exactly what happens.

What’s a drafter to do? In this case, the answer lies in Constraints. Click on the Parametric tab of the Ribbon to get started. Yes, it’s a pretty busy menu with lots of icons. If you’re like a lot of 2D drafters, you’re probably aware of it, but have also probably never used constraints for anything.

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a full tutorial on how to use them. AutoCAD gives you a shortcut and does the work for you. On the left side of the Geometric tab, you’ll see a large Auto Constrain icon. Using it is extremely easy. You’ll be prompted to select objects… so select the objects you want to constrain. In our example, we’ll do the slot first and the rectangle second.

But first, there are a few things you’ll want to know if this is your first experience using geometric constraints in AutoCAD.

Working with Geometric Constraints in AutoCAD

Next to the Auto Constrain icon, you’ll see all of the types of constraints you can apply. These are things like perpendicular, concentric, or parallel. When a constraint is applied to an object, an icon of the constraint type will display at the affected geometric point. You’ll want to know that you can show or hide them using the tools to the right of the geometric constraint icons.

There’s also a very handy Delete Constraints tool in the Manage tab at the far right. You’ll be prompted to select objects. Choose what you want, or if you want to affect the entire drawing, just type in All.

Why did I want to make sure you’re aware of this? Imagine getting in a drawing from an external source, and nearly all of your attempts at editing it give you weird results. What could the problem be? Well, perhaps constraints have been applied, but all of their icons have been hidden. Just click on Show All, then Delete Constraints, and select all if you don’t want them. Badda bing – problem solved. **

OK, so we’re going to be using the Auto Constrain feature on the slot. It will apply whatever constraints that it finds to your selected object(s). In this case, it uses Tangent, Parallel, and Horizontal. Now, as we see in the animation below, grip editing the shape will now retain its shape.

That was easy. Two clicks and you’re done. But there may be some situations where Auto Constrain will constrain your object too much. You can also easily manage the constraints that it will use. For our Rectangle, we want to do just that, as if you use the default set, it will be constrained so much that you can’t grip edit it all.

Your only option while in the Auto Constrain command is to access the settings box. You can do this from the pull-down menu if you have Dynamic Input turned on, or by just typing S into the Command Line. The Constraints Settings dialog can also be accessed by clicking on the little arrow icon at the corner of the Geometric panel before using Auto Constrain. If you do it this way, you’ll need to make sure to click on the AutoConstrain tab.

By default, all constraint types but Equal are checked to be used. For our rectangle, we want to apply only the Perpendicular constraint. Again, this is very easy. Just click on the Clear All button, then click on the check for Perpendicular. Close the dialog with OK, and you’re ready to go.

Select the rectangle and then enter. The perpendicular constraint icons will appear, and now when you grip-edit the corner, it retains its shape.

That’s All Folks

Geometric constraints can be extremely powerful, or incredibly annoying (especially if you don’t know they’re there). In today’s example, I’ve shown you an easy way to use them to maintain geometric shapes.

As for my story about the incoming constrained drawing? I know this because it happened to me, and more than once. Well, actually, it would happen to my users. As the CAD Manager, I’d get the call or the message, and off I’d go to debug the problem.

And a final word of warning. Do not ever, under any circumstances, use Auto Constrain on all the objects in your neighbor’s open drawing and hide their icons while your co-worker is in the break room on April Fool’s Day. It is in no way funny.

We here at Tuesday Tips HQ do not condone this behavior and disavow any responsibility.

More Tuesday Tips

Check out our whole Tuesday Tips series for ideas on how to make AutoCAD work for you. 

The post Geometric Constraints in AutoCAD: Tuesday Tips With Frank appeared first on AutoCAD Blog.

Perhaps you’re a bit like me, and while you can appreciate the visual stimulus, you’d rather just get to the point. Today, our feature is called Selection Preview, and, like many AutoCAD features, you can control how it works.

Selection Preview Settings

The first step, of course, is getting there. It starts with the Options dialog. Get there in your favorite manner – mine is to right-click anywhere in the drawing editor (with no objects selected) and select Options from the pop-up dialog.

Then, in the Options dialog, click on the Select tab as shown in the image above. Finally, you’ll want to focus on the Preview settings in the bottom right.

Now that you’re where you need to be, let’s see what some of our options are.

The first two are directly responsible for our rollover scenario, and one is part of the things I always change when I get an upgrade. We can immediately stop the disco lights when rolling over things with no command active. Uncheck the second entry. That alone will be a big change for you. Personally, I like to have only selection preview enabled when I have a command active.

You can also control what kinds of objects are lit up like a disco dance floor when they are previewed. Click on the Visual Effect Settings… button, and you’ll get the following dialog.

We want to focus our attention on the right side. This is one of the more unusual dialogs in AutoCAD, as you are selecting an object type to exclude, instead of one to include. Of course, those unchecked are included, but I think you get my meaning. By default, objects on locked layers and Xrefs are excluded from preview. If you’d prefer to see them previewed, uncheck them here. Back to our scenario, this is where you can tell AutoCAD not to preview Tables, Groups, Mtext, or Hatches.

Again, you’re excluding things here, so, for example, if you never want to see Hatches preview, whether you’re in a command or not, check it here. Click OK to save and exit, and do the same for the main Options dialog.

Moving Forward

One of my favorite non-disco bands of that era led a song with the lyrics “Don’t look now, but here come the 80’s.” Not exactly a good way to make a song timeless, but hey, at least I remember it 45 years later.

By that time, though, the disco age was coming to a close, culminating in a 1979 “Disco Demolition Night” event at a Chicago White Sox home double-header, which quickly devolved into a riot of fans burning disco records.

The good news for you is that you can keep AutoCAD from looking like a disco dance floor and more like a streamlined, fast CAD program. It’s just a matter of knowing where to go and what to adjust.

When you do, those polyester suits, gold chains, and slicked back hair will stay in the disco era where they belong.

More Tuesday Tips

Check out our whole Tuesday Tips series for ideas on how to make AutoCAD work for you. 

The post Stayin’ Alive with Selection Preview in AutoCAD: Tuesday Tips With Frank appeared first on AutoCAD Blog.

Getting Started with CAD Standards

The standards checker consists of two parts: the standards file and the configuration tool. You may already have a file that houses your CAD standards, as your template probably contains all your correct layers, linetypes, and styles. Simply save that file with a DWS extension or create a new one that contains your standards. If you work in a multi-disciplined environment, you can even have multiple files, perhaps one for each discipline, such as architecture, structural, or MEP.

Once you have created your standards file(s), click on the Manage tab on the ribbon and select Configure in the Standards panel. This opens the configuration dialog where you can attach your DWS file(s). You can add multiple files and prioritize them by reordering—the top file takes precedence during audits. Like an Xref, these files stay attached until you remove them, so consider adding them to your templates for maximum efficiency.

In the Plug-ins tab, select what you want to audit: Dimension Styles, Layers, Linetypes, or Text Styles. Check or uncheck as needed; the description box spells out precisely what each plug-in inspects.

Finally, you’ll want to configure what actions happen when a standards violation is found. When you click on the CAD Standards settings button, you’ll get a dialog where you can choose how, or if, you’d like to be notified of a violation, and what you want to do when a violation is found.

Running the CAD Standards Checker

To check your drawing vs. the standards file, click Check in the Standards panel or use the Check Standards option in the configuration dialog. The Check Standards dialog lists any issues, suggests fixes based on your DWS file, and lets you fix, ignore, or skip to the next problem.

The audit checks both the named object, such as the layer or style name, and its properties. Choosing to fix a non-standard name will not only change the object’s name but also purge the bad name from the drawing. If the violation should be with a property of the named object, such as the color of a layer, it will simply fix the property.

If notifications are enabled, you’ll receive an alert or status bar balloon when a violation is detected, either during a check or when opening a drawing with an attached DWS file.

Another Perspective on CAD Standards

We’ve looked at this so far from the perspective of enforcing office standards. While it certainly helps with that, let’s think outside the box for a minute. Let’s assume your office hums when it comes to standards. Everything is built into your custom tools, and your company template is perfect.

One day, you get a batch of as-built drawings from the client. You are to use them in your project, but they’re not even close to your meticulously crafted CAD standards. Now what? You could assign the summer intern to scrub them all into your standards, but that would take way too much time, perhaps a whole week. Interns come cheap, not experienced.

Then you remember reading this Tuesday Tip. Donning your superhero Captain CAD cape, you make a copy of your company DWT file, rename the copy’s extension to DWS, and apply it to each as-built. You specify the settings to automatically fix non-standard properties and disable notifications, and just like that, you’re probably at least 90% done with your task.

When you’re done, detach the DWS file, Save (of course), and delete the evidence when they’re all done (the copied DWT that became the DWS). Don’t forget to hang up your cape before you tell the boss that you took care of the conversion in a few hours, not days. Now, you’ve just set a perfect example of working smarter, not harder.

Summing It Up

Whether you’re dealing with that rogue cowboy in your office who likes to use their favorite colors or fonts, or if you’re converting another drawing to your office standards, CAD Standards maintain consistency, accuracy, efficiency, and project your company drawings’ professionalism.

The CAD Standards Manager is like a modern AI assistant that you can rely on to keep your drawings streamlined and accurate. It may not be something you use all the time, but knowing about it can help you become the office power user, or even your version of a Captain CAD Superhero (cape not included).

More Tuesday Tips

Check out our whole Tuesday Tips series for ideas on how to make AutoCAD work for you. 

The post Managing Your CAD Standards: Tuesday Tips With Frank appeared first on AutoCAD Blog.

OK, let’s set the scene. You defined the location of the dimension incorrectly, or you need to alter its appearance or placement. By far, the easiest thing to do is to use the dimension object’s editing grips.

In the animation below, you’ll see how easy it is to select the dimension, make one of the definition points hot and place it into a new position.

After that, I hover over a dimension line grip. You’ll see a small popup menu display where you can use the dimension as the start for a continue or baseline dimension, or you can even flip the arrow! In this case, I use the grip to pull the dimension up into the room above.

Finally, hovering on the grip of the text string, will again display a popup menu with various options. Here, I choose Move with Leader to re-locate the text and draw a leader. If I had just wanted to move the text string, I would use the grip much like the prior two edits.

None of that is very hard, and it’s a very efficient way to make geometric edits to your dimensions.

Text Overrides With Special Characters

Back to Dim Style settings for a moment. A style definition will let you put the dimension text above the dimension line, or below, but not both. How can you overcome this? The answer lies in the Text Override property of the dimension object.

Below, you see a typical example of doing this. I’ve got a number of these 5’-4” dimensions and I want to add TYP below the line.

Select the dimension object, and from the Properties palette, scroll down to the Text panel. At the bottom, you’ll first see the measurement in gray, so you can’t edit it (more on that in a minute). Below that is Text override. This is the field that you’ll want to edit

There are two parts to the special characters you’re going to use. AutoCAD will interpret <> as the dimensioned measurement, the \X as a line break, and TYP as the text to place under the dimension line. By the way, the X here must be capitalized.

Please Don’t Do the Following

I just said that the Measurement property is grayed out and can’t be changed via the Properties palette. That’s great. But it can still be done. And, it’s as easy as double clicking on the text string, and typing in whatever you want.

Below, I’ve done just that. The 5’-4” measurement has changed, but instead of editing the geometry and/or making sure the definition points are accurately place, the lazy drafter just edits the text and moves on.

Here’s the worst part. You won’t know they’ve done it. It looks right, so you just assume that it is. I actually worked with a person who did this. Don’t be that person.

Trust But Verify

There’s an old Russian proverb that says, “Trust but verify.” To fix overridden dimension strings, type DIMREASSOC in either the Dynamic Input Box or the Command Line. You’ll be prompted to select objects. At this point, select an area, or just type in ALL since the command filters out anything that’s not a dimension. In other words, don’t take extra time to carefully select only dimensions – DIMREASSOC doesn’t care.

Note: There is also a command called DIMREASSOCIATE – fully spelled out. It does something entirely different, so please be aware.

If there are any dimensions that have overridden text, they will be immediately highlighted for you, as shown below. Here, I find that four of the 3’ dimensions are wrong.

Now comes the easy part. Just hit Enter to end object selection, and Boom! All the overridden dimensions now read accurately.

There you go, dear readers. Dimension settings and editing in two parts. Next time, I’ll be presenting some of the more important things you need to pay attention to with your CAD standards, and maybe even some ways to manage them.

More Tuesday Tips

Check out our whole Tuesday Tips series for ideas on how to make AutoCAD work for you. 

The post How to Change Dimensions in AutoCAD: Tuesday Tips With Frank appeared first on AutoCAD Blog.

Autodesk is helping to provide the solutions required to take advantage of new AI-enabled workflows. Autodesk AI is embedded throughout Autodesk products with new workflows being added regularly. Integrating with Autodesk products, including AutoCAD (and eventually Autodesk model context protocol [MCP] servers), it provides a unified and collaborative experience with continuous access to critical data.  

Let’s take a look at how you can use Autodesk AI in AutoCAD today through Autodesk Assistant and where it’s going in the future. 

How Autodesk Assistant Enhances AutoCAD Today

Today, Autodesk Assistant is your partner in doing more with AutoCAD. It can help with design tasks, help you learn about new features, and troubleshoot design challenges without leaving the workspace. You also can initiate a discussion with a support agent or submit a support case from within Autodesk Assistant.

Looking to the Future of Agentic AI and AutoCAD

In the future, Autodesk Assistant will be the unified entry point for Autodesk products, simplifying cross-product workflows with a context-aware intelligent assistant that offers access through one interface. Autodesk Assistant will grow with new capabilities as Autodesk develops trusted MCP services, CAD and physics-informed foundation models, and other Autodesk AI capabilities, exposing discrete functionalities embedded in Autodesk’s standalone software products.

At AU 2025, attendees got a preview of this functionality during the AECO keynote. In AutoCAD, you’ll be able to analyze the submission against your drawing standards and get results right away, highlighting violations in layers, lines, text, and dimensions. No more tedious review for hours. You can have intelligent analysis in seconds. See the demo for yourself:

Learn More

Interested in learning more about Autodesk AI? Visit the Autodesk AI hub.

The post Looking to the Future of Agentic AI with AutoCAD and Autodesk Assistant appeared first on AutoCAD Blog.

I’m kidding. I’ll be touching on very small percentage of what I consider to be some of most important. Plus, I’ll be using their description from the Modify Dimension Style dialog, instead of the actual dimension variable name.

To be honest, most of us never think about the variables that make up your dimension style. And, if set up right, there should be no reason for you to do so. Outside of choosing a different style to use, you may not even be aware of what the Modify Dim Style dialog looks like.

If that’s you, you’re in luck. The animation below cycles through the seven tabs at the top of the dialog. You should also note that in each tab, there is a preview box in each, always in the same place, the upper right corner. If you’re of a certain experience level like me, you’ll know what a big deal that is.

The Important Stuff About AutoCAD Dimension Settings

I’d say at least 90% of the AutoCAD Dimension Settings you’ll find in the Modify dialog control what the dimension object looks like. What terminators are you using? What’s the gap between the object and the dimension line? Where and how is the dimension’s text place? Things like that. Others control how they function, and the settings I’ll be talking about fall into that category.

First, in the Text tab, is the text style. The currently active text style may not necessarily match the style that the dim style uses. They are not connected, so it’s important that they match – if that’s what you want. I’ve seen it both ways (usually matching). I’ve been around the CAD block long enough to have worn a path, so in general, I’ve seen it all – or at least a whole lot.

Below that, you’ll find Text Height. This setting goes directly to your CAD Standard. It’s the actual height of the dimension text. 3/32” and 1/8” are extremely common when using Imperial units.

The next two settings are directly responsible for how your dimensioning method functions. The oldest method (yet still in use today), is to place your dimensions into model space, scaled up to the intended plot scale of the model, where the scale is the inverse value of the drawing’s scale. For instance, if the scale is to be 1/8”=1’-0” when plotted, the inverse scale would be 96. That’s the overall scale setting that we see in the next image. That means all of your dimension features get scaled up 96 times, so that when it gets plotted to scale, everything will be the right size.

Like I said, that method is about as old as AutoCAD itself, literally before paper space, so all we had was scaling up the dimensions in model space (which didn’t even have that name until paper space came along). It was either that, or draw the model to scale as you would have done in the days of board drafting. Not really an optimal solution.

Now we have more modern methods. If you want to use Annotative dimensions, this is where you’ll set it to do so. Checking the Annotative box will disable the two radio buttons below it.

If you want the scale of the paper space viewport to control the feature scaling, choose the top radio button. If you want to go old school, this is where you’ll enter the scale value.

The next one is found in the Primary Units tab. This is typically a point of confusion for new users. Quite simply, the units used in your dimension style do not automatically correspond to the overall units defined in your drawing. If you want them to match, which you probably do, you have to set them here as well.

At the bottom is Measurement scale. Typically, since you’re drawing at 1:1 scale, you’ll leave this at 1.0. But if your drawing is drawn to scale for some reason, let’s say it’s a tiny part, and you’ve scaled it up 2x, you’d want to set the scale factor to .50

Do you use Alternate Units in your dimensions? If you do, chances are that it’s probably metric. You’ll need to turn the feature on in the Alternate Units tab using the checkbox at the top. Then make sure the multiplier is set correctly. By default it’s already set to 25.4 for metric. If you’re using something else, this is where you’ll set that value.

One More Thing About AutoCAD Dimension Settings

There’s one other dimension variable that is very important, but it’s not part of your dimension style. It’s a system variable called DIMASSOC. It can be set to either 0, 1, or 2. The default is 2. That means that the definition points of the dimension object are associated to the object’s geometric points. Stretch the object, and the dimension updates.

A setting of 1 does not associate the dimension to the geometry, and 0 (zero) creates in essence an exploded dimension. I’m not sure why you’d want to do that, but you do you. This variable is saved in the drawing, so it’s not one of those set it once and it stays that way.

Looking Ahead

For my next Tuesday Tips, I’ll be looking at editing existing dimensions. In fact, while discussing dimensioning variables here, along with various methods, I’ve got another topic in mind for you. After that, I’ll discuss some of the more important things you should find in your CAD Standards, so stay tuned!

More Tuesday Tips

Check out our whole Tuesday Tips series for ideas on how to make AutoCAD work for you. 

The post AutoCAD Dimension Settings: Tuesday Tips With Frank appeared first on AutoCAD Blog.