Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 4
Setup for Success
In This Chapter
Developing a setup strategy
Starting a new drawing
Setting up model space
Creating and using drawing templates
Surprisingly, drawing setup is one of the trickier aspects of using AutoCAD. It's an easy
thing to do incompletely or incorrectly, and AutoCAD 2012 doesn't provide a simple, one-
click tool to help you do all of it right. And yet, drawing setup is a crucial thing to get
right. Setup steps that you omit or don't do right may come back to bite you later.
Sloppy setup really becomes apparent when you try to
plot
(print) your drawing. Things
that seemed more or less okay as you zoomed around on the screen are suddenly the
wrong size or scale on paper. And nothing brands someone as a naïve AutoCAD wannabe
as quickly as the inability to plot a drawing at the right size and scale. Chapter 5 covers
plotting setup procedures, but the information in this chapter is a necessary prerequisite
