TABLE OF CONTENTS Off the shelf, AutoCAD is extremely powerful. But, like many popular engineering and business software programs, it does not automatically do all things for all users. It does probably better than any software available permit users to make changes and additions to the core program to suit individual needs and applications. Word processors offer a feature by which you can save a combination of many keystrokes and invoke them at any time with just one or a combination of two keystrokes or choosing a button on a user-created toolbar. This automation is known as a macro. Spreadsheet and database management programs (as well as other types of programs) have their own library of user functions that can be combined and saved as user named, custom designed commands. Using these features to make your copy of a generic program unique and more powerful for your particular application is known as customizing.
Customizing AutoCAD can include several facets requiring various skill levels. The topics in this chapter include creating custom linetypes, shapes, and hatch patterns. And, with the Customize User Interface (CUI) dialog box, you can customize the interface features used in a drawing session such as workspaces, toolbars, menus, shortcut menus, and keyboard shortcuts.
After completing this chapter, you will be able to customize the following:
Workspaces
Toolbars
Menus
Shortcut menus
Keyboard shortcuts
Mouse buttons
Other customizations included are:
Loading Partial CUI files
Creating custom linetypes, hatch patterns, shapes, and fonts
To customize workspaces, toolbars, menus, shortcut menus, keyboard...
