A Lap around the CAD Track - AutoCAD 2012 - page 62

21. Type P to choose the Polyline option, and then press Enter.
AutoCAD prompts you to select a 2D polyline. As you move your mouse pointer
over the rectangle, AutoCAD shows you a preview of what the fillet will look like.
22. Select the rectangle you drew in Steps 16 to 18.
All four corners of the column are rounded with a 2-inch [50-mm] radius fillet.
Next, offset the polyline to create a 3/4-inch [19 mm] thick steel column.
23. On the Modify panel, click the Offset button.
24. At the Specify Offset Distance prompt, type .75 [19] and press Enter.
25. At the Select Object to Offset prompt, click the rounded rectangle. At the Speci-
fy Point on Side to Offset prompt, click anywhere inside the rounded rectangle.
Press Enter to complete the command.
AutoCAD offsets the selected object toward the inside of the rounded rectangle (see
Figure 3-7).
Make sure your Object Snap status bar button is toggled off for this step,
or AutoCAD may offset your object back on top of itself.
26. Click the Dynamic Input button on the status bar so the button looks dimmed.
Now that you've given Dynamic Input a test drive, turn it off for the rest
of this chapter. You know how to turn it off and on, and if you like it, by all means,
turn it on again for the remainder of the topic. Personally, I think that it gets in the
way too much to be truly useful, so I rarely use it.
27. Press Ctrl+S to save the drawing.
AutoCAD saves the drawing and renames the previously saved version drawing-
name .bak — for example, My Plate is Base.bak . .bak is AutoCAD's extension
for a backup file.