Overview

Back in grade school, when I'd been naughty (and got caught), I was punished by being assigned to write "penance" sentences "I will be good in school," one hundred times. Oh! The degradations of childhood!

But in my childish attempts to cut corners (there were always ways to cut corners), I would tape four pencils together. Then I only had to "be good in school" twenty-five times!

Apparently, someone at Autodesk learned a similar childhood lesson. The result was the MLine command. The MLine command does just what taping four pencils together did it enables you to create more than one line at a time.

AutoCAD's multilines actually involve three commands: MLine , MLEdit , and MLStyle . The first actually draws the lines; the second enables you to edit, or change, the lines; the third enables you to define the lines.

In Lesson 12 , we'll look at each.

12.1 Many at Once AutoCAD's Multilines and the MLine Command

The MLine command is an easy-to-use tool designed to enhance the efficiency of multiline drawing.

The command sequence is

• Command: mline (or ml )

  Current settings: Justification = Top, Scale = 1.00, Style = STANDARD

  Specify start point or [Justification/Scale/STyle]: [pick the start point]

  Specify next point: [pick the next point]

  Specify next point or [Undo]: [either continue picking points or hit enter to complete the command]

As you can see, the actual command sequence isn't very different from drawing any...