Learning ACA for residential work

[rickJJL35]

I took an online training course that covered the basics, I now have the first and second floor designed but the school failed to teach how to use levels, create elevation views etc. I need to be able to convert these to a full set of construction docs and am in over my head. If anyone has any direction that would be amazing.

Thank you!

[David_W_Koch]

Are you using the Drawing Management feature (Project Browser and Project Navigator)?  That feature is designed to organize your project files and make it easier to create the views you want on your final documents and to place them there.  If this was not covered in your online training (or not covered in sufficient depth), you may want to consider purchasing a tutorial-based book, rather than just relying on the Help and what you can find in this Forum.

Unfortunately, the current state of book sales is such that most titles are not updated with each new release.  Fortunately, the Drawing Management feature has not changed radically over the last seven or so years.  There had been a number of authors with AutoCAD Architecture books; a search on amazon.com should turn up several.  I am very familiar with only one book series, by Paul Aubin. The most recent was written for the 2011 release of AutoCAD Architecture, but you should be able to use it with more recent releases without too much difficulty.  The book takes two project, one residential and the other commercial, from initial design through construction documents.  You should have a good feel for how the Drawing Management feature works when you have completed the tutorials.

Another thing to take into consideration is the schedule you need to meet for your current project.  Working through the tutorials in Paul's book is likely to take at least a few weeks, unless you are planning to put is some really long days.  I am not sure there is a really fast way to learn how the Drawing Management feature works, however.

FULL DISCLOSURE:  I assisted Paul with the 2010 and 2011 updates to his AutoCAD Architecture books.  I was compensated for my time, but I do not receive any ongoing compensation based on sales.

[gotphish001]

I got paul aubin's book as was suggested. It was very good and even though it's 2011 version, I had no trouble getting through it with 2017 software. It didn't take me near as long as I thought to go through all the tutorials by the size of the book either. It's a ton of info to remember. What I did and what I suggest is as you go through the book, I made a simple outline on a blank page in the back of the book. Basically if I did a lesson that I knew I would use those tools, but I knew I wouldn't remember all the info I would write down the topic and the page number. That way I could easily see the 25 or so topics I knew would come up in designs. Obviously there's an index and contents but my smaller index has been very helpful to me for quick references. 

Lynda.com had some good lessons. I think it was like $25 bucks for a months subscription. I went though all there ACA courses in like 2 days. Lessons are short 4-6 minutes but info is good and easy to understand. If they have a free trial you could easily watch all the lessons during that probably. It's no where near the bulk of info Aubin's book is though.

[jeffrav1]

I bought a ebook My first project AutoCAD Architecture 2015 imperial byAttila G Horvath for around 30 dollars.Awesome book takes you through startup to end building a 2 story house also go to AutoCAD Architecture Blog there will be free downloadable chapters 

[Victoria.Studley]

Hi @rickJJL35,

Welcome to the Autodesk Community!

I see a few replies here with some great resources. Did any of these help point you in the right direction?