TABLE OF CONTENTS You may be working in an office that s conservative about upgrades, and probably for good reason. Because of the fairly recent introduction of the Customizable User Interface (CUI) in AutoCAD 2006, this chapter will contain some sections that apply to most releases, but others that apply only to AutoCAD 2006 and later.
Why should you bother to customize AutoCAD s interface? There are three primary reasons:
To make yourself more efficient
To encourage the use of office standards
To create linetypes that don t already exist in AutoCAD
Efficiency comes from eliminating some steps in using AutoCAD commands and reducing the clutter of toolbars and tool palettes that contain tools you never use. How about making your own toolbar? And while you re at it, how about creating personal commands that eliminate mindless repetition? If you haven t done any customizing before, you ll be surprised at how much easier it is to work when you ve streamlined AutoCAD. Face it: We re all a bit lazy, so every little thing that keeps us from working hard is welcome. Sometimes I think the best AutoCAD users are the lazy ones.
In this chapter, I m covered the areas I think give you the biggest return on your investment of customizing time. Take a look, and I m certain you ll find something in this chapter that makes the time spent customizing worthwhile.
Tool Palettes
Menus
Accelerator Keys
Custom Linetypes
Tool palettes began as a place to store blocks and...
