AutoCAD For Dummies - Ralph Grabowski

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of the Home tab click the Stretch button (shown in the margin).The Stretch command starts, and AutoCAD prompts you to select objects. This is one of those times and one of those command that requires you to watch the command line.

      2 Follow the command line instructions to click points from right to left to define a crossing selection box. Select objects to stretch by crossing-window or crossing-polygon…Select objects: Click a point above and to the right of the upper-right corner of the plate (Point 1 in Figure 3-8).Specify opposite corner: Move the cursor down and to the left. Click a point below the plate, roughly under the center of the column (Point 2 in Figure 3-8).The pointer changes to a dashed rectangle enclosing a rectangular green area, which indicates that you’re specifying a crossing selection box. The crossing selection box must cut through the plate and column for the Stretch command to work (see Figure 3-8). You see the following:10 foundSelect objects: Press Enter.FIGURE 3-8: Specifying a crossing selection box for the Stretch command.

      3 If these drafting settings aren’t already set this way, turn off Snap (F9) and turn on Ortho (F8) and Object Snap (F3). Then set a base point for the stretch operation. Specify base point or [Displacement] <Displacement>: Move the mouse pointer over the lower-right corner of the plate, and click when you see a square box with an Endpoint tooltip.This point serves as the base point for the stretch operation. (Chapter 11 describes base points and displacements in greater detail.) As before, if you can’t get the cursor to snap to the endpoint, right-click the Object Snap (F3) button and select Endpoint.

      4 Specify a displacement for the stretch operation.AutoCAD prompts you at the command line:Specify second point or <use first point as displacement>:Move the cursor horizontally to the right, type 6, and press Enter, as shown in Figure 3-9.AutoCAD stretches the plate and column with its hatching, and moves the anchor bolts by the distance you indicated (see Figure 3-9).FIGURE 3-9: Stretching the base plate.

      5 Enter Z A at the command line to see the entire drawing. If the first stretch didn’t work properly, press Ctrl+Z to undo, and then try again. Stretch is an immensely useful command that makes you wonder how drafters used to work with only erasers and pencils.

      6 When the stretched drawing is as you want it, press Ctrl+S to save the drawing.

      The drawing afd03d-i.dwg contained in the afd03.zip download is the stretched version of the base plate. How does it compare with your version?

      

After some drawing and editing, you may wonder how you’re supposed to know when to turn off or on the various status bar modes (Snap, Grid, Ortho, Object Snap, and others). Rest assured that you eventually begin to develop an instinctive sense of when they’re useful and when they’re in the way. If a mode is in your way or you realize that you need one, you can click the buttons or press the F keys at any time while using the editing and drawing commands. Later in this book, I give you more-specific guidelines.

      Looking at drawings on a computer screen and exchanging them with others via email or websites is all well and good, but sooner or later, someone — maybe you — will want to see the printed versions. Plotting drawings in AutoCAD (as CAD geeks refer to printing in AutoCAD) is a little more complicated, however, than printing a word processing document or a spreadsheet. You have to address issues such as drawing scales, lineweights, title blocks, and weird paper sizes. I delve deeper into plotting in Chapter 16, but this section describes an abbreviated procedure that can help you generate a recognizable printed drawing.

      

The steps in the following section show you how to plot the model space portion of the drawing. As Chapter 12 describes, AutoCAD includes a sophisticated feature — paper space layouts — for creating arrangements, usually including a title block, of the drawings you plot. Because I promised you a gentle tour of AutoCAD drafting functions, I save the discussion of paper space layouts and title blocks for later in this chapter. When you’re ready for the whole plotting enchilada, turn to Chapter 12 for information about how to set up paper space layouts and see Chapter 16 for full plotting instructions.

      Plotting the drawing

      The following steps should produce a satisfactory plot in almost all circumstances, though specific brands and models of plotter or printer might sometimes vary the result. Writers call this introduction the CYA, or Cover Your Backside, statement.

      Follow these steps to plot a drawing:

      1  Click the Plot button on the Quick Access toolbar or press Ctrl+P.The Quick Access toolbar is at the left end of the program’s title bar, just to the right of the Application button. The Plot icon looks like an ordinary desktop printer.AutoCAD opens the Plot – Model dialog box, with the title bar showing what you’re plotting (Model, in this case). See Figure 3-10.If you don’t see all the option windows shown down the right side of the dialog box in Figure 3-10, click the arrow in the lower-right corner.

      2 In the Printer/Plotter section, select a printer from the Name drop-down list.When in doubt, the Default Windows System Printer usually works.

      3 In the Paper Size section, use the drop-down list to select a paper size that’s loaded in the printer or plotter.Anything Letter size (8½ x 11 inches) [A4 (210 x 297mm)] or larger works for this example.

      4 In the Plot Area section, select Limits from the What to Plot drop-down list.This is the entire drawing area, which you specified when you set up the drawing in the section “A Simple Setup,” earlier in this chapter.

      5 In the Plot Offset section, select the Center the Plot check box.Alternatively, you can specify offsets of 0 or other amounts to position the plot at a specific location on the paper.

      6 In the Plot Scale section, deselect the Fit to Paper check box and choose 1:10 from the Scale drop-down list.You receive no prize for guessing the metric equivalent of 1:10.

      7 In the Plot Style Table (Pen Assignments) section, click the drop-down list and choose monochrome.ctb.The monochrome.ctb plot style table ensures that all lines appear in solid black rather than as different colors or weird shades of gray. See Chapter 16 for information about plot style tables and monochrome and color plotting.

      8 Click Yes when the question dialog box appears, asking Assign This Plot Style Table to All Layouts?You can leave the remaining settings at their default values as shown in Figure 3-10.

      9 Click the Preview button.If the plot scale you entered in the Plot dialog box is out of sync with the drawing’s annotation scale, the Plot Scale Confirm dialog box appears, advising you that the annotation scale isn’t equal to the plot scale. This drawing doesn’t contain text or dimensions, and you didn’t make the hatch annotative, so you can click Continue to generate the plot.FIGURE 3-10: The Plot dialog box, with the More Options area visible. Annotative scaling controls the printed size of text, dimensions, hatching, and other types of annotation objects at plot time — as long as the drawing’s annotation scale matches the plot scale. I explain annotative objects in Chapters 13 and 14.The Plot dialog box disappears temporarily,

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