Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
much like it did in AutoCAD 2008. I show you how in the “Going for that classic look”
sidebar, in this chapter.
AutoCAD Does Windows (And Office)
Whether you're a total newcomer or an experienced user from a few releases back, I can
guarantee that finding your way around AutoCAD 2012 is going to be a challenging ex-
perience.
If you're already familiar with the Microsoft Office 2007 suite, you may recognize some
program features, such as the Ribbon and the Application Menu, which you use for
choosing commands or changing system settings. But even if AutoCAD's new look does
seem a little familiar in places, many aspects of the program's appearance — and some
of the ways in which you work with it — are quite different from other Windows pro-
grams. Depending on the workspace you've chosen to use, you can, in many cases, tell
the program what to do in at least five ways — pick a toolbar button, pick from a pull-
down menu, pick a tool button from a Ribbon panel, type at the keyboard, or choose
from a right-click menu — none of which is necessarily the best method to use for every
task.
Profiling your display
The illustrations and descriptions in this chapter and throughout the topic show the
default
configura-
tion of the AutoCAD 2012 Drafting & Annotation workspace — that is, the way the screen looks if you
use the standard version of AutoCAD 2012 (not a flavored version, such as AutoCAD Architecture 2012
or AutoCAD Mechanical 2012) and don't change any display settings. You can change workspaces by
clicking either the Workspace Switching button on the status bar or the Workspace drop-down menu
on the Quick Access Toolbar, and choosing a different workspace from the menu. You can change the
appearance of the workspace itself with settings on the Display tab of the Options dialog box (click the
Application button, and then click Options at the bottom of the Application Menu) and by dragging tool-
bars and other screen components.
The main change from AutoCAD's default settings that I've made for this topic is to conigure the draw-
ing area background to be white because the figures show up better that way. The default background
color in both AutoCAD 2012 and AutoCAD LT 2012 is dark gray, but many longtime users prefer a pure
