Other Practical Precision Procedures

The following are some other AutoCAD precision techniques (refer to Table 7-1):

  • image Snap: If you turn on Snap mode, AutoCAD constrains the crosshairs to an imaginary rectangular grid of points at the spacing that you've specified when AutoCAD prompts you to specify a point.

    image In every AutoCAD release until this one, Snap mode was as much nuisance as drafting aid. Enabling Snap mode caused the cursor to move in snap increments all the time, and that could prevent you from selecting objects or picking the point you wanted. When you enable Snap mode in AutoCAD 2012, your crosshairs jump to snap points only when the program asks you to pick a point.

    Follow these steps to turn on Snap mode:

    1. Right-click the Snap Mode button on the status bar.

    2. Choose Settings.

    The Snap and Grid tab on the Drafting Settings dialog box appears.

    3. Enter a snap spacing in the Snap X Spacing field and click OK.

    Click the Snap Mode button on the status bar (labeled SNAP if your status-bar buttons show text) or press F9 to toggle Snap mode off and on. To use Snap effectively, change the snap spacing frequently — changing to a smaller spacing as you zoom in and work on smaller areas.

    You can switch between Grid Snap (that is, snap points in rows and columns) and PolarSnap ...

Get AutoCAD® 2012 FOR DUMMIES® now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial