Getting faster with AutoCAD

[MarkFitz]

I'm old school when it comes to AutoCAD, I learned on DOS, and type in every command abbreviation to get to where I need to be.  Even when Windows came about, I thought it was still faster for me to type, as I knew the keyboard better than the screen to find where things were.  Now, I'm constantly being told from my last 3 jobs, that I need to speed up!   I know they exist, but I'm not too familiar with Grips, for example, would that help?

How do I get faster at this???

Open to any and every suggestion, PLEASE HELP!!!

Thanks,

Mark

@MarkFitz

john.vellek has edited your subject line for clarity: FASTER, FASTER!!!!

[beyoungjr]

Hi Mark,

Which version are you currently using?  Plain AutoCAD?

What type of work are you doing (Civil/Survey, Archtectural, etc...)?

Grips are a handy tool but certainly not going to be the prime contribution to speeding up your workflows.  There are many handy tools that have evolved.  Let us know what field you are in and maybe we can point you toward some helpful hints.

Cheers,

Blaine

[john.vellek]

HI @MarkFitz,

Good to see you back in the Community Mark!

I suspect that individual commands can be typed or selected off of ribbons and palettes efficiently and likely don't impact overall drawing time by a large degree. I wonder though if perhaps there are some methods of your drawing that could be updated.  I find that I learn by watching others work and pick things up from watching quick videos on YouTube and such. Perhaps even a CAD refresher course might be helpful.

[TheCADnoob]

Generally in my experience, the command line is faster with the caveat that it shouldn't be used for everything. 

It should also be said that fast isn't synonymous with accurate. 

If you are not using the ribbon it might be worth looking into. 

Some suggestions for picking up speed - Watch what the "fast" guys do and take note of when they do something different than you. 

If you want to be come more familiar with aspects of the GUI challenge your self to only use the mouse and see how you fare. There are some wonderful tools in the right click menus and the contextual ribbons. One you are proficient, then just pick the best parts of both worlds. 

If you are having trouble finding where a command is in the interface you can search it by click on the "a" and searching. 

[MarkFitz]

Good morning Gentlemen,

John, I completely agree, I've considered taking a refresher course, have to see what I can find locally though.  And online videos do help, I just need to find the right ones, quickly, so if anyone can point me in any direction, I would greatly appreciate it.

Currently using LT 2018, but I'm in and out of variations of ACAD, last job was full ACAD, previous was Electrical.

Perhaps what I need to do rather than watch videos, is make one myself, filmed over my shoulder or whatever, of what I do and how I work, then have people make suggestions...?

[MarkFitz]

I use XLINE a lot, because it's accurate, then trim accordingly...

Good/Bad...??

[gotphish001]

I use a gaming mouse that I made a bunch of macros for the buttons for my most used commands. Now that on it's own isn't a ton faster than just typing the shortcuts. Where I gain the speed I believe is that I can be using the commands off the mouse and then my left hand can stay on the number pad to type in distances. 

My mouse has buttons on it for: esc, mirror, spacebar, mtext, break, join, delete, move, copy, shift, trim, offset, polyline. Took a while to get used to where the buttons were but not as long as you would think.  I made a little cheat sheet and taped it to my monitor for the button locations. I ended up moving the buttons around and put the ones I used more on the easier to reach mouse buttons as it depends on your hand size how your thumb will rest on the mouse. I also tried learning them in tiers and not all at once. Like when I started using it for the first week I really only used the move, copy, polyline, esc buttons as to not overwhelm myself with 13  buttons. I'd need to think about where they were but by the end of the week I just did it and had those 4 down. Next week I added a few more.  I mouse with many buttons isn't for everyone. It's just one thing that I do. I used to play games years ago so it's more natural for me. For some people it just adds a layer of confusion and complication that they don't need.

Another thing to get faster is to see what things you do most. If you use break once a day then getting a tiny bit faster at using break isn't going to speed you up very much. If you use move every 15 seconds then being faster at move will really add up over a day. After you find the things you use most then think how can I be faster at these things? What kinds of drawings and software are you using? Post the things you do most as I mentioned and maybe people will have some tips to speed you up.  Like me, I used palettes in this way. I put things on palettes that I'm using over and over.  When I'm noting up a drawing I have a palette for that. One of it's tabs is 2 different multileaders that go in on different layers, 2 dim styles that go in on specific layers and other things like that. I'm using those things over and over when I'm annotating so having it all set up ahead of time is easier. 

You can flip through a few commands with spacebar after you click on a grip. Depending on what you are doing it could help. For me clicking on the grip takes more time than just doing the command and windowing some part of the object to get it selected.

 Short version is what things do you do most? Figure out how to be faster at a few of those and your overall speed will go up just by the shear amount of repetition that goes on in autocad.

[pendean]

Your question is too generalized: how did they want you to speed up exactly? Did you ask?
Is this a per-assignment turn-around time issue?
Or are you too nit-picky as you draft objects when it may not be truly necessary?
Or are you just unwilling to adopt new tools or alternate methods of doing something(s) that they consider essential?

Find out: you may have missed more detailed critique/details that would help you.

FWIW Use Autodesk's free SCREENCAST to record yourself using the software https://knowledge.autodesk.com/community/screencast

[beyoungjr]

Hi again,

I like the suggestion by @cadffm regarding the ribbon.  The commands that are visible by default cover most work you might encounter.  The home ribbon has quick access to common things and other ribbon tabs drill into those areas further.  Each panel of the ribbon may offer additional commands via drop-down arrow and some commands offer deeper option via similar arrow.

I've worked with several students over the years that were in the same spot as you and they simply enrolled to refresh their skills.  I challenged them to follow my lead in classroom demonstrations but as you might expect, they were sometimes the hardest ones to keep moving.  Once they accepted the new interface and saw the efficiencies it became more clear to them how to speed up a bit.

Suggested design tools to consider (if not already using):

Dynamic Input

Polar Tracking (forget Ortho)

Object Snap (running OSNAPs and on-demand using shift+right-click)

Object Snap Tracking

If you are REALLY stuck in low gear the I'll suggest that you try some "intuitive trimming" by starting your trim command and hitting the enter key.  You can simply hover over things you want to trim and they will attempt to find intersections for trimming instead of you having to specify the trimming curves.  Within the same command sequence you can hold the shift key to extend intuitively.

Also know that every option you typically see on the command line is available via the right-click menu as you progress through command sets.

The mouse (just in case)...

Use the wheel for zooming in and out.  Double-click the wheel to zoom-extents.

As you force yourself to work with new things feel free to post questions or stumbling points on the forums.

Cheers,

Blaine

[john.vellek]

Hi @MarkFitz,

I ran across this site this morning and hope that you will find it useful.

[MarkFitz]

Blaine - Sorry this is out of order...

LT, right now, for the last 6 weeks or so, but full ACAD prior to that.  And now, sheet metal and piping mostly, making large scale enclosures for big Caterpillar engines, so a lot of it is retro-fitting, taking engine A, and fitting it in a box such that all the ports line up and connect properly to item B (I know it sounds straight forward enough, but these things never seem to line up correctly)

[MarkFitz]

Many, many thanks, John, you always take such good care of me!    Looking after your little buddy.  I know, somebody needs to!  Ha ha.

[john.vellek]

Hey @MarkFitz (Little buddy),

Please let the Community know how you decide to proceed and the results.

[TheCADnoob]

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@MarkFitz wrote:

I use XLINE a lot, because it's accurate, then trim accordingly...

Good/Bad...??

---

Id pose this can be good and bad. I rarely use xline for actual geometry i use it more for construction lines. That said there have been a few time i used it. 

[TheCADnoob]

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@MarkFitz wrote:
...

Perhaps what I need to do rather than watch videos, is make one myself, filmed over my shoulder or whatever, of what I do and how I work, then have people make suggestions...?

---

This is a pretty good idea. Just get some examples together and ask people to volunteer to critique or draft. as @pendean mentioned screencasts are a pretty good way to go. They capture both video audio and commands. see this example screen cast. 

[Anonymous]

"... perhaps there are some methods of your drawing that could be updated."

As a self-taught AutoCAD user (mostly YouTube), I went into a local architect office last week to try out as a draftsman.  He gave me a simple plan to draw and an hour to see how much I could get done in that time. (Floor plan, roof plan, and elevation)  After an hour he came back and said what I accomplished could be done in about 10 minutes.  Then he took me to his office and showed me.  I was blown away at what is possible. (of course, he was a seasoned architect)  The difference comes down to:

• reprogramming some of your hotkeys so your left-hand stays close to the left side of your keyboard and your right-hand stays on the mouse most of the time.  "C" for cut instead of circle, "X" for extend instead of explode and stuff like that. (Do it with care and thought,,,, I actually did "CC" for cut and "EE" for extend,,,, also I got one of these Logitech G15 gaming keyboards for complex hotkeys and that helps too.)
• the way he used the Trim and Fillet command was different than I had seen before, like Fillet with 0.0 cuts the corners together.  I never would have thought about that. 
• use the keyboard commands more than menu and ribbons
• the way you select objects (I kept grabbing the corner nodes and end nodes and trying to stretch them to a point or line,,, where as I could try extra temporary lines can extend several lines to that temp line and then delete the temporary line)
• I also noticed using the spacebar as the enter (or "next") in a commend process with my left hand was way faster than trying to press the "Enter" key as the prompt suggests.
• Lastly, memorizing the commands so they are intuitive and second nature.  It is one thing to logically know a command, it is another to drill and practise that command until it is second nature and spontaneous. 

Needless to say, I did not get that job, but I got a vision of what is possible.   That vision opened up my mind that this same concept applies to all sides of life.   The METHOD and WAY we go about doing something can make all the difference.