AutoCAD For Dummies 18th Edition by Bill Fane.
Content:
Introduction
Part 1: Getting Started with AutoCAD
CHAPTER 1: Introducing AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT
CHAPTER 2: The Grand Tour of AutoCAD
CHAPTER 3: A Lap around the CAD Track
CHAPTER 4: Setup for Success
CHAPTER 5: A Zoom with a View
Part 2: Let There Be Lines
CHAPTER 6: Along the Straight and Narrow
CHAPTER 7: Dangerous Curves Ahead
CHAPTER 8: Preciseliness Is Next to CADliness
CHAPTER 9: Manage Your Properties
CHAPTER 10: Grabbing Onto Object Selection
CHAPTER 11: Edit for Credit
CHAPTER 12: Planning for Paper
Part 3: If Drawings Could Talk
CHAPTER 13: Text with Character
CHAPTER 14: Entering New Dimensions
CHAPTER 15: Down the Hatch!
CHAPTER 16: The Plot Thickens
Part 4: Advancing with AutoCAD
CHAPTER 17: The ABCs of Blocks
CHAPTER 18: Everything from Arrays to Xrefs
CHAPTER 19: Call the Parametrics!
CHAPTER 20: Drawing on the Internet
Part 5: On a 3D Spree
CHAPTER 21: It’s a 3D World After All
CHAPTER 22: From Drawings to Models
CHAPTER 23: It’s Showtime!
CHAPTER 24: AutoCAD Plays Well with Others
AutoCAD®
Part 6: The Part of Tens
CHAPTER 25: Ten AutoCAD Resources
CHAPTER 26: Ten System Variables to Make Your AutoCAD Life Easier
CHAPTER 27: Ten AutoCAD Secrets
Index
introduction about this book by Bill Fane :
Welcome to the wonderful world of AutoCAD and to the fame and fortune that awaits you as an AutoCAD user. (Would I lie to you?) Believe it or not, AutoCAD is almost 40 years old, having been born in December 1982, when most people thought that personal computers weren’t capable of industrial-strength tasks like CAD. The acronym stands for Computer-Aided Drafting, Computer-Aided Design, or both, depending on who you talk to. What’s equally scary is that many of today’s hotshot AutoCAD users, and most of the readers of this book, weren’t even born when the program first hit the street and when the grizzled old-timer writing these words began using it.
AutoCAD remains the king of the PC computer CAD hill by a tall margin, making it one of the longest-lived computer programs ever. It’s conceivable that the longterm future of CAD may belong to special-purpose, 3D-based software such as the Autodesk Inventor and Revit programs, or to specialized market-specific variations built on top of AutoCAD. At any rate, AutoCAD’s DWG file format is the de facto standard, and so AutoCAD will be where the CAD action is for the foreseeable future.
You may have heard that AutoCAD is complex, and therefore is difficult to learn and use. Yes, the user interface includes about 1,300 icons. But it has been my observation that the easier any software is to learn and use, the sooner you bump up against its limitations. A car with no accelerator, one forward gear, no steering, and no brakes would be easy to use until you reached a hill, a curve, or a stop sign or you needed to back out of a parking space.
Yes, AutoCAD is complex, but that’s the secret to its success. Some claim that few people use more than 10 percent of AutoCAD’s capabilities. Closer analysis reveals that most people use the same basic 5 percent and everyone else uses a different 5 percent after that. The trick is to find your 5 percent, the sweet spot that suits your particular industry. If you follow my advice, I think you will find that using AutoCAD is as simple and intuitive as driving a car.
It should be perfectly clear that if your career path has put you in a position where you need to know how to use AutoCAD, you’re no dummy!
About This Book:
Unlike many other For Dummies books, this one often tells you to consult the official software documentation. AutoCAD is just too big and powerful for a single book to attempt to describe it completely. The book that ultimately covers every AutoCAD topic would need a forklift to move it. Literally. They stopped shipping paper instruction manuals with the software somewhere around 1995, when the full documentation package grew to about a dozen volumes and more than 30 pounds.
In AutoCAD For Dummies, I occasionally mention differences from previous releases so that everyone gains some context and so that upgraders can more readily understand the differences; plus, you’re bound to encounter a few of the billions and billions of drawings that were created using older methods. I also mention the important differences between AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT. In particular, AutoCAD LT has no programming language and has extremely limited support for parametrics (Chapter 19) and 3D (Chapter 21).
This book is not Mechanical Drafting For Dummies, or Architectural Drafting For Dummies, or even Crash Testing For Dummies. It doesn’t cover drafting principles and procedures, but it does cover the AutoCAD commands necessary to create drawings. Remember, though, that knowing AutoCAD’s drawing commands won’t make you a great designer, just as knowing how to touch-type and run a word processor won’t make you a great author. The job title CAD operator doesn’t exist, but almost all drafters and designers use CAD.
In addition, the book does not cover the discipline-specific features in AutoCADbased vertical market products, such as AutoCAD Electrical or AutoCAD Mechanical, although most of the information in this book applies to the general-purpose features of those programs as well.
This book covers AutoCAD 2015 through 2020. The obvious major differences between these versions and 2014 and earlier are the initial startup screen and the format of the Ribbon menu. The underlying principles remain the same. I will draw your attention to other differences where appropriate.
Late in 2010, Autodesk released the first non–Microsoft Windows version of AutoCAD in 20 years. Although AutoCAD for Mac is now available, AutoCAD For Dummies covers only the Windows version. The two versions are file-compatible, but they differ in many ways in how they look and what they can do. If you have AutoCAD for Mac, you should be able to grasp basic concepts but you might be better off with a Mac-specific book such as Mastering AutoCAD For Mac, by George Omura and Rick Graham (Sybex Publishing) or What’s Inside? AutoCAD for Macintosh, by Ralph Grabowski, available as an e-book at www.worldcadaccess.com/ebook sonline/2015/07/wia.html. Halfway down the page (“To Place Your Order”) is a drop-drown list, from which you can choose the Mac version of the ebook.
Assumptions:
AutoCAD has a large, loyal, dedicated group of longtime users. AutoCAD For Dummies is not for you if you’ve been using AutoCAD for a decade or more, if you plan your vacation time around Autodesk University, if you used AutoCAD to create your wedding invitations, if you tell police officers that you can walk a straight line if they will press F8 first, or if you read 1,200-page technical tomes about AutoCAD for pleasure. This book is for you if you want to get going quickly with AutoCAD, and you understand the importance of developing proper CAD techniques from the beginning.
However, you do need to have an idea of how to use your computer system before tackling AutoCAD and this book. You need to have a computer system with AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT (preferably the 2020 version but at least 2015 or later). A printer or plotter and a connection to the Internet are helpful, too. You also need to know how to use your version of Windows to copy and delete files, create a folder, and find a file. You need to know how to use a mouse to select (highlight) or to choose (activate) commands, how to close a window, and how to minimize and maximize windows. You should be familiar with the basics of your operating system before you start using AutoCAD.
Book Details:
⏩Edition: 18th Edition
⏩Author: Bill Fane
⏩Publisher: For Dummies
⏩Puplication Date: June 12, 2019
⏩Language: English
⏩Pages: 547
⏩Size: 13.1 MB
⏩Format: PDF
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