Actually, running commands in AutoCAD is very easy. Simply activate the command you need and then follow the prompts that appear on the command line.
In this article, we will learn some common ways to activate commands in AutoCAD and how to select options from the command line.
A. Activate Commands
There are 3 common ways to activate commands in AutoCAD, namely activate commands from the Menu Bar, from the Ribbon Panel and from the Command Line. If you don’t know where these parts are, click here.
1. Activate commands from Ribbon Panel
To activate commands from Ribbon Panel, simply find the command icon you need and click on it, then the command will be active.
Frequently used commands are usually located on the Home tab. The icons of the AutoCAD commands will be displayed in each explanation later.
2. Activate commands from Menu Bar
Menu Bar is a row of menus containing commands grouped by function.
To activate commands from Menu Bar, simply click on one of the menus and then click on the name of the command you need, then the command will be active.
Frequently used commands are found in the Draw, Modify, and Dimension menus.
- Draw menu contains commands for creating drawings, such as Line and Circle.
- Modify menu contains commands for modifying drawings, such as Trim and Rotate.
- Dimension menu contains commands for creating dimension lines, such as DIMLINEAR and DIMANGULAR.
Note: By default, the Menu Bar is only displayed in AutoCAD Classic workspace. However, if you want to display it in other workspaces, simply type MENUBAR in the Command Line and press Enter. Then, change the value to 1 (type 1 and press Enter).
3. Activate commands from Command Line
To activate commands from command line, simply type the name of the command you need, and then press Enter key.
Most commands have shortcuts consisting of just one or a few letters. For example, the shortcut for LINE command is the letter L. You can type LINE in full or simply type L to activate LINE command.
Other command shortcuts will be written in each explanation.
B. Prompts
Prompts is a message or question that appears on the command line to guide us when executing a command.
For example, if we activate the LINE command, the following prompt will appear: “specify first point“. So, click the mouse on the work screen to specify the starting point of the line we will create.
After specifying the first point, the “specify next point” prompt will appear.
Likewise for other commands. there will always be prompts that guide us to continue the command. For beginners, it is very important to look at the prompts when running commands.
C. Select an options from Command Line
Some commands in AutoCAD will display an options on the command line. Some of these options are method choices and some are options to input certain parameters.
An example can be seen in the image below:
The example above shows when we activate the CIRCLE command. This command will display several circle creation method options. We can choose one according to our needs.
The example above is when we run the HELIX command. The command will display several options for entering helix parameters. We can use them as needed, or skip them.
There are two ways to select options from the command line:
- Hover the cursor over one of the options and then click on it, and it will be selected.
- Type a capital letter or a blue letter for the option you want to select, then press Enter. The option will be selected.
D. Input values in the Command Line
When executing commands in AutoCAD, we often need to input values, such as coordinates, scales, etc. When inputting these values, use a period (.) as the decimal separator and a comma (,) as the X, Y, and Z coordinate separator.
Example:
- The decimal value of half is written as 0.5
- The coordinate values X=10 Y=5.5 and Z=3.5 are written as 10,5.5,3.5
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