Lynn Allen's Blog

An AutoCAD Hip Tip for MTEXT

I will spare you another day of Puppy pictures...(just one day)...and just offer up a Hip Tip for the weekend...

An AutoCAD Hip Tip for Changing the Extrusion Thickness of MTEXT:

We can change the 3D thickness of regular single-line text - but not MTEXT - right?  With so much 3D happening in AutoCAD it would be equally nice if we had that option for MTEXT as well.  Enter the Express Tool TXTEXP. This tool explodes your text to indivual line and arc objects - which in turn allows you to change the extrusion thickness (use Properties or the CHPROP command).  TXTEXP can be found in the Express menu under Text=>Explode Text.   There are other goals you could meet with this command (for example, have you ever wanted to change the linetype of text?)...but I think changing the extrusion thickness will be the most popular.

So there you have it!  Have a fabulous weekend and we'll chat again next week...(and no doubt a puppy picture or two...the penance you must pay for Hip Tips during my sabbatical).

A New Puppy! (and a Hip Tip)

Well...a little over one week into my sabbatical I got a puppy!  An adorable little Maltese puppy to keep me company during the day while I work on my AutoCAD book...so cute I can hardly stand it!  Little "Tiffany" (yes I realize it's a seriously girly name) was an early wedding gift from my fiance...do I know how to pick them or what?  Sooooo cute...

Prepare yourself for numerous puppy pictures in the weeks to come (you can't say I didn't warn you!). 

After that abuse - I think I owe you an AutoCAD Hip Tip - what do you say?

An AutoCAD Hip Tip to Sync up Viewports:

We've all done it...we've accidentally messed up the scalefactors in our viewports only to try and get them all lined up again...drats!  The very cool Express Tool VPSYNC is a real lifesaver in just these situations.

Command: VPSYNC
Select master viewport: Select a viewport
Select viewports to be aligned to master viewport.
Select objects: Select one or more viewports

All syncronized viewports will take on the same zoom factor as the master viewport!

And here's a tip from the very friendly Express Tools Help file:

Tip:
If you place all the viewports on a separate layer, and turn that layer off after running VPSYNC, the edges of the viewport are not displayed, which gives the drawing a cleaner appearance.

So there you have it...I'm off and running to catch the new puppy...I leave you with two last pics...one of Tiffany (alone) and one of my betrothed, Craig, and said puppy!

A Hip Tip from Portland

I'm going to Portland, Oregon today for a brief presentation in our Tualatin office...followed up by a 70th birthday party for a very close family friend (like a second father to me).  I'm soooo looking forward to seeing everyone again!  I have to run for the airport but here's a quick hip tip to hopefully make your Thursday (or Friday) just a tad better...

A Hip Tip for replacing URLS in AutoCAD:

If you have discovered the very cool technique of associating URLs to objects inside of AutoCAD, you might appreciate a speedy method for replacing them after the fact.  The Express Tool CHURL (don't you just love that name?) makes it easy to replace an existing URL with a new one.

Give it a go...and I'm on the go...off to the airport for me!

A Sabbatical Hip Tip!

Well it's official...I'm on sabbatical!  In the Autodesk world that means I am officially off-duty for 6 weeks.  So will I continue to blog?  You'll just have to continue to tune in for that answer...(does she really care about us or is she just doing it because it's her job?)...Inquiring minds want to know...

AutoCAD Hip Tip on Global Attribute Editing:

I've recently received a few emails raving about an often forgot Express Tool called GATTE. This cool tool went missing from the EXPRESS menu a couple of releases ago but it's clearly not forgotten.  If you've ever wanted to quickly replace multiple instances of one attribute value with another then this command is the one to use.  GATTE will quickly replace all instances for you (or you can select just the ones you want if that works better for you).

Command: GATTE
Select block or attribute [Block name]: Use an object selection method, or enter B for the block name
Known tag names for block: AutoCAD returns the attribute tags for the selected block.
Select attribute or type attribute name: Use an object selection method or enter the attribute tag name
Number of inserts in drawing = 6 Process all of them? [Yes/No] <Yes>: If no, select the block inserts to process

So there you have it!  If you live in the world of attributes then this tool could potentially save you loads of time...

Happy 5th of July!

I trust you all enjoyed a great Independence Day weekend (here in the States).  I returned home on a flight last night and consequently missed all the fireworks - a bit of a drag...it just doesn't feel like the Fourth of July without some fireworks!

An AutoCAD Hip Tip on Publishing:

I received an email from an AutoCAD user who needed to publish nearly 3000 drawings to DWF - each in different page setups and layouts.  He didn't have AutoCAD 2006 or 2007 installed and consequently couldn't use the cool PUBLISH command (that I mentioned in my blog previously).  He downloaded the cool (and incredibly free) DWG TrueView from the Autodesk website and used the PUBLISH option to do the job (works much better than the old BatchPlot Utility as well).  So if you find yourself in the same boat - you might want to give it a try!

Thanks for the great idea Aggelos!