RE: Autocad 2000 HELP
No problem, this is one of the forums that I check frequently. The long reply near the top of this thread is a good place to start. There are a lot of books on the subject, and some of them are pretty good. However, even the best of them seem to focus on everything ACAD can do, and give little thought to technique.
First, there are some habits I like to emphasize.
1. Use polylines where ever possible.
2. Learn to use Object snaps. Do not eyeball it. If lines are not connected exactly end to end, they cannot be converted to polylines.
3. Learn to use Ortho Mode. I use the F8 key to toggle this on and off. If you want to draw a horizontal line, make sure it is truly horizontal. Again, do not eyeball.
4. If you have a line that comes up short of another line that you want it to connect to, use the Extend command. DO NOT connect it by drawing another small line segment. There are several reasons for this, one is that if you want to divide this distanse using the Midpoint Osnap, you will not get the true midpoint.
5. Use layers.
5a. object properties should almost always be set to ''by layer''. This makes layer management easier. Set the layer colors with an eye to contrast. 2001az's post above is a good example of using contrasting colors.
5b. Use a system for naming layers. For example, a wing has ribs, and spars. Name the layers W-rib21, W-rib02. . . W-spar01... etc. I use 01, and 02, instead of 1, and 2, so that when there are more than ten ribs, the layers will still sort sequentially. If you have a drawing with a lot of layers, you will come to appreciate this.
6. Learn to use dimension styles. Do not use the style called ''Standard''. It complies with no standard known outside of AutoCAD. This is because of a problem that was worse in ACAD14 and earlier versions. People would modify the ''Standard'' style to comply with their in-house style, then insert drawings from some third party that have their own version of ''standard''. They would then go crazy trying to figure out why their dimensions would get buggy. ACAD 2000 did not make this problem go away, it just made it easier to fix. Which leads me to . . .
7. Open the ''Properties'' dialog, and dock it. I leave mine open as shown here.