drawing a horizontal line when pressing shift

[JamesPowell7164]

Gentlemen

I had a problem when drawing lines - they were coming out not horizontal or vertical. One of you kind gentlemen tipped me of that if you press shift whilst drawing a line then it will be vertical or horizontal. For some reason, I have gone to do this today and it doesn't work..... any one know why? 

[steven-g]

It works both ways, if you have ortho off then the shift key temporarily turns it on, but if it is on then it turns it off. Is that maybe the problem

[JamesPowell7164]

Steven

Thanks for coming back to me. I am afraid it doesn't seem to be working at all. Whether Ortho is on or off, the shift key doesn't seem to have any effect.I am using a laptop but that shouldn't matter should it? Its with AutoCAD 2018.

Would appreciate your help on this as I am doing a drawing that I have to transfer levels from one elevation to another and I need to ensure that they are accurate. It'll be a right pain if this doesn't work.

[pendean]

Are you using a mouse, or the laptop's touch pad?
There is a 1/2 second delay (could be as long as a second on slower hardware), are you waiting long enough?

[JamesPowell7164]

Hello Dean

I am using the keyboard on the laptop with a mouse (Logitech Trackball M570) and have waited but it doesn't work. I have also looked at the CUI menu and that is set as shown:

see temporary toggle mode

what have I done Dean??

[steven-g · Accepted solution]

It does look to be a laptop issue, I tried this at work on my desktop earlier and everything was fine, but trying now on my laptop at home and it doesn't, very strange. At least you know it's not you.

EDIT

Definately just a shift key problem, I just created a new overide and assigned it a couple of different key combinations using the same macro copied and it works without problem, I tried shift+T but they are a bit far apart. shift+|  (which is the backslash key "\" key) works as well.

[JamesPowell7164]

Do you reckon it could be too much stuff open in the background?

[steven-g]

See my EDIT above

[JamesPowell7164]

How did you create a new overide?

[steven-g · Accepted solution]

In the CUI right click on the temporary overrides header and select create new

A new temporary overide will appear at the bottom of the list highlight the new override and then over to the right you can fill in the macro and choose a new key combination.

If you first copy the macro from the original ortho overide (it's about 2/3rd's down the list, then paste the macro in the box shown with arrow 1 in the image above,

Then you assign a key combination click on the ellipsis "..." shown by arrow 2 and in the 'shorcut Keys' box arrow 3 just press the key combination you want to use, But I would look through the list of combinations that have already been used just in case, if you do pick an existing combination that is used for another shortcut it will issue a warning but then still let your choice take over.

[JamesPowell7164]

Thanks Steven

You've been a great help!