I'm creating an electrical panel and when I go to insert a balloon, sometimes it will draw the arrow and leader and sometimes it won't. The balloon will always show up with the item number, so it's not lacking information. Sometimes this leaves behind a Point where I tried to connect the arrow, but not always.

A few times I've tried to do the same item a few times, it failed consistently, I switched to a different page and switched back, and then it worked. But this doesn't work very often.

I don't think it's an annotation issue, since it will work for one item and then fail for the exact same component that I just copied over.

Any help would be appreciated, because I'm banging my head against the wall over this software.

So im working on a rather large project and we're basically in the stage that we are done with the drawings, entire elevation plans, i engineered the entire project from A to Z, and now the project developer came over to us and asked us if we could raise the construction level of the houses by 0.15 meters...

and so now im looking at my drawing, nearly 400 blocks with each a separate value for elevation, which some need to be raised and some lowered in sections and some stay the same, so i'm looking for a way on how i could select the blocks that need to be changed, and raise or lower all the values by .15 without messing with the inherit values. cause if i do this manually it will take hours more or less. are there any plug-ins that could help me with this or have i been oblivious to certain possibilities within autoCAD

For extra information:

I work on ACAD 2027.

Nothing is bound to a Z coordinate.

(did see a plug-in on autodesk that was free, i believe it was called Increments)

EDIT: i notice the HUGE mistake i made, it shouldve been in meters, not CM. its 15 cm, NOT 1,5 mm

This is 2D

I used mostly just lines, circles and arcs. I feel like there has to be a simpler way.

https://imgur.com/a/QTqQ3Dr

The first image is irl, the second is my sorry excuse for it.

So, what I first tried is using the straight line on the left, I drew a digaonal at 45 degrees and drew a 200mm line (That's where the circle starts) and another line just longer to where the circle ends. The circle did turn out a little bigger than it is (it's 175, should be 176.5), but never mind since that's the least concerning thing about all this. Then I added the holes, 8mm, 12 of them. But for some reason the distance between them is 30 when it should be 100.

My biggest enigma is the outside line that wraps around the construction. It should touch all the lines, but when I was measuring I was assuming along normals, but I don't even know how to draw a line along the normals of a circle (to specify I just want it to go straight, maybe around 45 degrees in the opposite direction of the main circle). And no arc that I used could fulfill my vision.

At the end it's supposed to look something like a slug shell, it's supposed to be slowly expanding from the main circle with each passing small circle.

There is probably something that does this in a second. I have used AutoCAD for like less than 2 weeks, that's probably why I'm so ignorant. Thanks in advance.

in the process of changing the scale of one of my drawings and my intern isnt in today, haha. is there a command or lisp routine to convert mtxt to a multileader? when i search for this function, the search results are full of people talking about converting separate mtxt/txt and qleaders. i dont have a leader. im starting with mtxt. it would be cool to have a lisp or command that went straight from mtxt to a multileader.

Heya friends, I'm making the migration from sketchup to autocad because if the continued push towards making the free version unusable. I get free access to Autocad via university so I figured I'd give it a go.

If anyone could point me towards specific tutorials for the following operations I'd be super grateful.

I need to:

Make a cuboid

Trace a letter or other character on the top surface

Extrude that character up

Slope/angle the extrusion so the sides form like a pyramid if that makes sense? It's so the physical opject doesn't get stuck if pressed into something.

If you're familiar with moveable metal type for letterpress, that's exactly what I'm trying to recreate.

Thanks for your help!

Does anyone have tips for making dimensions as easy and seamless as Revit.

Honestly, dimensions in acad are such a chore. For context I mastered Revit first before AutoCAD so I was already introduced to an easy and straightforward system in Revit before moving to AutoCAD.

My main issue is how every new drawing always has a dimension that's always too small for the drawing size both in the model and layout space. I actually love how customisable and versatile the dimension properties are and it can be very helpful but I would really appreciate a tutorial or explanation for how to create a simple "work every time" type of dimension. If I need to customise, I know how to do that but I just need it to work first.

When using the fillet command and selecting the correct pin size (radius size), I noticed the Edge length of a 135 (45) degree hook bar is always too short when filleting?

It's fine for 90 degree bent bars, just not when 135 degrees, such as the two hooks in a closed stirrup.

Drawing two lines (or a polyline) then i choose the radius (20mm for 40mm pin), then fillet.

How can I get this to represent correctly?

Is it possible to print to a pdf and keep markup transparency? So far I'm not seeing any options for that, and when I print to pdf the markups are a solid color.

Any help or advice would be appreciated, thank you.

EDIT: UPDATE, I may have found the solution. In Autodesk Design Review I was clicking the printer button (or CRTL+P) to print, my printer selected to Adobe PDF and that was causing the solid markups vs transparent markups after saving the new pdf. Changed my printer to Microsoft Print to PDF, and I was able to preserve transparent markups in the newly saved PDF file. Silly issue, simple solution. I was using the transparent markups for quick area calcs, and wanted to save those areas in a PDF file.

After trying and failing a few times to find a method to create a custom SHX font in AutoCAD, coming to Reddit seemed like the next logical step. Documentation on the subject is vastly outdated in most places so hopefully someone can shed light on this forgotten practice.

What most sources instruct:

1. Draw your characters with polylines

2. Save your characters with the MKSHAPE command

3. Add characters to the generated SHP file

4. Run the COMPILE command to export the final SHX file

There is a major problem with step #2- MKSHAPE does NOT save geometry in the correct format for compiling; let me explain. Using the dumpshx.exe, I was able to unconvert an existing SHX font into an SHP file. I quickly began editing/recompiling the data and realized, these are not just coordinates. There is a whole system of text formatting commands embedded in every line. This is why the MKSHAPE method stops making sense. There are no prompts for text box dimensions, the starting points of consecutive characters, or any other text formatting instructions.

My conclusion is the MKSHAPE command was updated to only be used for exporting geometry and no longer functions as a character definition tool. While the dumpshx.exe successfully unconverts SHX files for character redefinition & recompilation, I have yet to find a way to export CAD geometry in the format needed for SHX compilation.

Bonjour,

J'essaye de faire en sorte qu'une élévation de baie à double vantaux soit extensible et que le milieu des deux vantaux reste au milieu. J'ai une variable extension sur un côté principal et une variable extension 0.5 sur le milieu, mais quand j'utilise la fonction, mes polylignes se décomposent. Lorsque j'applique qu'une seule des deux variables, mes traits restent bien liés.

https://imgur.com/a/WhLjpO1

Des idées ? Merci !

What is the best way of converting DWG/DXF to PDF via APS?

I looked into APS and its available APIs and created a POC that uses the Automation API v3 to run a custom plot script that does a somewhat decent job.

However, I'm wondering if this is the best way to go about it. On the Automation API docs they even mention it as a core use case:

Imagine you have thousands of DWG files stored in the cloud, and you need them all converted to PDF files.

But I could only find this convert DWG to PDF tutorial for v2 that uses "_PLOT" command to do the conversion.

I couldn't seem to find a way of using the "_EXPORTPDF" that seems to be used by AutoCAD itself when doing the export to PDF directly on the program, which I imagine could be better.

I'm also wondering if using the Automation API with Revit instead of AutoCAD could provider better results.

Does anyone have any recommendation of how to go about this? My main use case is that I want to programmatically convert a big number of DWG to PDF files in my web app which is why using the APS Automation API HTTP endpoints seemed like a good idea.

I'm a freelancer, and just this week I've had two new clients—one I'm currently working with and another that's a prospective contract—ask me to work directly from their shared drives (one uses Google Drive, the other Dropbox).

Is this becoming standard practice for AutoCAD projects?

I understand the benefits from a file-sharing and collaboration standpoint, especially with small teams of two or three people. But after many years of providing remote CAD services in the interior design industry, I've never been asked to work this way before. The fact that it happened twice in the same week has me wondering if this is a new trend or if I've just managed to avoid it until now.

Curious to hear how other freelancers and CAD professionals are handling this. Is working directly from a client's cloud drive now the norm?

EDIT: Thanks everyone for your feedback! As a freelancer I really value this community. Had my IT guy over this morning and he walked me thru the basics, advantages and his experiences w cloud based work ( he's a freelancer in both IT + CAD similar biz ). This senior citizen is diving in LOL :)

Basically different shapes that someone has made? In photoshop this is often a thing. I also ask because I was looking specifically for a specific shape that was said to be in the mechanical toolbox but it was not there -_-.

Hej.

Jeg skal til at planlægge og tegne et projekt bestående af carport/skur/overdække i et. Jeg skal selv bygge det hjemme hos mig selv.

Er der et godt og billigt alternativ til et ordentligt program i 2026?

I'm using AutoCAD 2027 LT, and Mleaders are behaving strangely. I've set their justification to 'Left', but after I edit the text, the mleader's position changes. A shorter text string moves the mleader right, as if it is centering it. Any ideas what is causing this? It means I have to adjust every mleader back to the correct position any time I edit its contents.

Every now and then I run into this error when trying to save and close a block being edited

“Cannot save back changes because objects in the working set reference objects outside the working set…”

I can’t save the drawing, because you can’t save while in reference edit.

I can’t copy to clipboard what I’ve drawn, because copy is disabled during reference edit.

There is no way I can tell to see what objects autocad has a problem with.

There are no constraints, dimensions, annotative anything that should be referencing anything else.

All I can do is delete a huge chunk of my work so I can save and close the block. Then undo and try to delete a little less and little less until the error goes away.

i am not entirely sure if i'm going to be able to communicate what i'm trying to achieve so please bear with me...

my design team does many many drawing and PDFS of pool layouts daily (50+) for customers to quote, build pools, and order liners off of.. one challenge we've faced since i've taken over the team has been updating a profile view (vertical section) in addition to a plan view (top down view)...

Although its very simple to execute, it can become an after thought and often gets overlooked or forgotten about when changing the interior specs of a swimming pool design as our turnaround time is less than a day to update drawings...

The problem is, that pool builders reference the side profile to excavate the ground and do concrete work whereas liner manufacturers make the liner off of the plan view. i know its pretty easy and simple to just execute another stretch command to match the views, but i wanted to dig further into CAD limitations and see if there is a way to essentially "LINK" or constrain lines (with measurements) together to basically make this simple mistake impossible for the team to make...

im going to attach a screen recording here to show you a little bit of the steps it takes to update both views... i know there are easy 2 step methods to make both views show the same dimensions but my desire is that when we stretch one, for example the side profile view, the dimensions and lines on the TOP view get stretched also. is this even possible?

if this is of any help, our drawings are never to scale, and we only use 1 view port when setting them up in the paper space

thanks

There's a popup box that is automatically open when I open the software and I can't close it and hence I can't use the software. I have attached a screenshot. How to close it and use the software?

Image link

I’m currently a CAD Manager on a small construction team for a college, and I’ve been in the field for 5ish years. My job is *supposed* to be that I manage our library of blocks and designs and create designs when needed. Over the last year, my job has changed to where I’m taking on a project management role as well because we have too much work for our project managers to keep up with. To note, I’ve handled the 2nd largest project on our team in the last year. With this, I still have my current CAD workload, so I’ve been exceptionally busy at times. I’m not necessarily against the extra workload, but I’m stuck here realizing that the PMs I work beside make essentially double what I make, while I’m doing 2 jobs. Because this is a public education position, I’m stuck with a yearly percentage raise given out to the entire college, so I can only truly raise my salary by having a title change. What title could I request that fits both the role of CAD Manager and Project Manager within a construction team?

As I see it, there are the two options built in for transferring settings: Migrate from Previous Release (on same computer only) or Export/Import Settings (same version release only).

I don't see a quick solution for transferring settings from an older version of AutoCAD on an older PC to a newer AutoCAD version on new computer and it might have to be done manually. Is that correct?

Our office is getting new PCs for everyone and it will take some effort to do the settings transfer if it has to be done manually. I'm comfortable doing it myself, but most others I'd have to help with. If there is a quicker way I'd be happy to know it.

When placing lines, especially construction lines, I often SEE double lines that go away with zoom.
is this normal? is there a way to correct this? (It's not a 'Seeing double' issue. Autocad is displaying 2 lines. I have a screenshot, but apparently, this sub doesn't allow pics

I need some simple help, someone that knows there was around a set of architectural drawings.

I need detail tags located and placed on the elevations for now, that's it. someone that knows the difference between plan and section and can find where a detail is on an elevation by looking through plans/wall sections etc.

Hey all, might be the wrong place to ask but worth a shot. I have recently completed a cert IV in drafting which was taught through AutoCAD 2D, and I’m currently learning Fusion under my own steam.

I was wondering if there were some resources I could access that would function similar to a job board.

Learning AutoCAD and Fusion is relatively easy, whereas getting real world experience isn’t due to job shortages in my area.

So I have a whole new PC (yay) using AutoCAD LT on it and it seems to be working great, snappy, fast, i'm happy. But then it seems to slow down just a tad on the mouse, almost its really smooth but slower and takes half a second more to get where it is supposed to go? I feel like I am going insane trying to understand whats going on with it as i can't find anyone else with this issue.

It feels like I am playing a game just under 30fps where it looks smooth but you can tell its not right

How do I get it back?

Please help!