Layout Selector

QVLAYOUT is a handy command,for sure.  It lets us hide our layout and model space tabs, recovering valuable screen real estate, and it provides a nice thumbnail view of each layout.  But it takes a few extra milliseconds to generate the thumbnails, and if you know you want to go to the first layout (which is often the case) and you are a keyboard commando, you might find this LISP routine useful.  It’s called LayoutNav.  Props to Lee Ambrosius for writing this back in 2003.

Load it up with APPLOAD, then you can use the command “FirstLayout” to jump right to the first layout tab.  I used ALIASEDIT to alias “L1″ to “FirstLayout”, so it’s EVEN QUICKER.  I’m into efficiency, if you haven’t noticed.

Next week: How to convince your clone to write your blog for you.

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PDFCreator

PDFCreator is a free, open source printer driver that allows you create PDF files without the need for any Adobe software.  I use it all the time, using Acrobat only to crop and rotate my PDFs.  It features auto-naming and auto-saving, so it is great for batch plotting.  Check it out.

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Blog Roundup

There’s some useful info out there:

Dave Dixon has some really useful info on Speeding Up Civil 3D.  I suspect these tips will work for vanilla AutoCAD as well.

Ellen Finkelstein on Clipping Blocks

Justin Zeimba on the downsides of ClearType

Donnie Gladfelter shows us how to Create Blocks with Multiple Insertion Points

Shaan Hurley links hatches to tables

Aleksandr Smirnov has a nice collection of LISP routines

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Introducing: the AutoCAD coordinizer

Happy New Year!  I’m back, and I have present for you.

I’m proud to reveal my latest bit of coding handiwork, the AutoCAD Coordinizer.  I originally created this in PHP, but didn’t have a free web host for it, so I just ported it to Python and put it on Google’s Apps site.

What it does, basically, is take the output of a LIST or ID command (or series of commands) and extract the X and Y values, placing them in a handy list.  I wrote it to simplify the creation of coordinate tables.

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