AutoCAD Tutorial
Preface
This tutorial (in
HTML form) for AutoCAD beginners was developed by Professor Nancy Wilkie
of Carleton College and Harrison Eiteljorg, II, Director of the Center
for the Study of Architecture. It is copyrighted by them but may be
freely downloaded, used, and distributed with the following conditions:
1) this heading must remain with the document
2) no charge of any kind may be made for distribution or usage by others
3) no changes in the document may be made by anyone in the chain of
distribution.
This document is available
on the Web, because we could include formatting in an HTML document but
not in a simple ASCII file for downloading. Note, though, that you can
download the source code and use it with your Web browser without being
connected to the Web. Of course, you can also print it out from the Web.
If you do print the tutorial from the Web, be sure to number the pages
immediately; they may not be numbered when you print them.
About this
document
Please let us know if you find problems or have suggestions for changes (neiteljo@brynmawr.edu or nwilkie@carleton.edu). We will extend and modify the tutorial on an irregular basis.
Sessions
Preface Session One Session Two Session Three Session Four Session Five Session Six
AutoCAD commands are normally in either italics or boldface, but those in boldface are commands you are being instructed to carry out as part of the tutorial. Those in italics are suggestions or other references to commands. Lines beginning with an asterisk contain instructions to carry out a process of some kind. We are probably not entirely consistent in these matters, but . . .
As the tutorial progresses, some of the instructions will become less complete, on the assumption that you have learned a good deal about the system and can figure out more on your own. If you find an incomplete description of a command, please check to see if a fuller description was provided earlier. We recommend that you work with the tutorial and otherwise work with AutoCAD for more than an hour at a time during your first week and that you try to work with the system daily for the first week. You will find that your comfort level increases and you will relax with the system more readily if you work with the system frequently and for longer stretches of time during the learning period.
Please note that we are instructing you to use keyboard commands exclusively. Virtually every one could be initiated with a menu selection instead. Feel free to experiment with other ways to activate the commands we've chosen; they should work the same whether started from the keyboard or a pull-down menu. We did choose to have you type commands, though, because we think that it's quicker in the long run - and because the keyboard commands are consistent from one version of AutoCAD to another, while the pull-down menus are not always consistent.
Finally, we have found through experimentation that you should read all of each command procedure before beginning to carry out the instructions. Sometimes things seem unclear but are quite obvious if you know the full sequence at the beginning; at other times, the first steps will be puzzling if you aren't aware of the ones to follow. In any case, the point is not to do the exercises; it is to understand how to use the commands.