The Mad Cadder

Invisible and very light font in MTEXT Editor

It's 9:00 am, you sit down at the computer, open AutoCAD 2005, take a sip of coffee, and put on your glasses. You then open the DWG file you were working on yesterday and double click a piece of MTEXT to edit a mistake and then it happens. The MTEXT editor looks weird, the font is almost invisible. You check to see if you have your glasses on, you do! Is my prescription too old? Has someone poisoned your coffee which is making you go blind? No, it MS Windows XP messing things up again!

Windows XP has a feature that will smooth out the appearance of the text on your screen. This is a great feature when using Word, Excel, Internet Explorer..etc. but it does the opposite in AutoCAD. This feature actually make the text seem very light in colour or almost invisible.

There is a quick solution to the problem:

1. Close AutoCAD.
2. Right-click on the desktop and choose PROPERTIES.
3. In the Display Properties Dialogue box pick the Appearance Tab.
4. Click on the EFFECTS button on the bottom.
5. In the Effects Dialogue box remove the check-mark beside "Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts"
6. Press OK, then Apply and OK again.
7. Restart AutoCAD.

Fillet and Chamfer with a crossing window

Most CAD users are familiar with the FILLET command.  This command rounds and fillets the edges of an object. When AutoCAD 2004 was released, the FILLET command was enhanced with a new option called MULTIPLE. It allowed the user to continuously fillet objects without exiting the command. If you want to try this out, pick the FILLET button from the Modify toolbar and  on the command line you will see the option for multiple. To issue the multiple option type the letter "U".

The fillet command is a very powerful tool that I use on a daily basis. The only problem that I have with the command is when I choose the two objects I need to fillet. I always miss the selection of one of those objects. To make it easier on myself, I discovered that there is a crossing window option in FILLET. To use the crossing window, pick the FILLET button in the Modify toolbar and then on the command line type "C" and press ENTER. Now, draw a crossing window around the two objects you want to FILLET and voila! It does not matter if you window right to left or left to right, it is a crossing window in both instances.

Bring Text and Dimensions to the front!

The drawing order of objects is very important in CAD drafting. Many times, I have forgotten to bring text and dimension forward before plotting, especially if they are behind a solid hatch. The TEXTTOFRONT command brings all text and dimensions to the front without having to select them all first. Those of you who are familiar with DRAWORDER command know that you must first select all the text and dimensions in the drawing and then use the "Front" option.

This is a simple command to use. On the command line type TEXTTOFRONT and then choose one of the three options.

ENHANCING CAD DRAWINGS WITH PHOTOSHOP

If anyone is interested in learning how to improve their CAD drawings using Photoshop there is a very intuitive and easy to understand book available on the market. The book is called, "Enhancing CAD Drawings with Photoshop" by Scott Onstott.

The book first takes you through the basic concepts and tools of Photoshop. After, you learn to apply these new skills to your CAD drawings using easy to follow tutorials.

If you are interested in the book and want more information you can visit the following site: http://www.sybex.com/sybexbooks.nsf/booklist/4386

Change the "abc' string in MTEXT

When using the MTEXT command in AutoCAD 2005, the letters "abc" appear on the cross-hair to indicate the current text style that will be used. If you would like to change the "abc" string to something else, you can use the MTJIGSTRING system variable.

1. On the command line type MTJIGSTRING.
2. Type in the character string that you want to appear.
3. Press Enter.

Note: The maximum amount of characters allowed in the string is 10. To have nothing appear on the cross-hair, use a period as the character string.

This is a great little innocent joke to play on a work colleague.