Pick box is rectangle not square (Crosshair box)

[NormsAUS]

I am often getting onto other PC's and finding that the crosshair pickbox (curser) is rectangle and not square.

I have looked in op (options) but no luck.

Any suggestions.

TIA 🙂

[Anonymous]

With the increasing use of flat screens have you checked that the screen showing the rectangle has been set at its default resolution. If a resolution has been selected which does not reflect the aspect ratio of the screen then a square generated by autocad will display as a rectangle. Hope this helps.

[pendean]

You are forcing your Windows display to a resolution that is not the default for your screen/monitor: there is no fix for it in AutoCAD/LT, that's a Windows setting.

Put the screen display resolution setting back to the teeny tiny size it wants to be and your box goes back to square.

[NormsAUS]

Cheers guys.

I appreciate the feedback.

But if it were due to the screen there would be other glitches. It happened the other day when I opened a new drawing, but only 2mins before I was in CAD and had no problems with the square on the crosshair.

Will try take a screenshot next time it happens.

Again guys thanks for the help and the prompt replies. You must love helping people. Appreciate it.

Have a great weekend.

[pendean]

Does your screen 'blink' as it changes shape?

What monitor do you have? What resolution is it running?

What video card do you have? Does it have it's own RAM or does it borrow system RAM?

[NormsAUS]

Thanks Dean.

No the screen isn't blinking when it changes.

Monitor: ASUS VH232

Resolution: 1920 x 1080 (recommended)

Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 5450

Total Available Graphics Memory: 2234 MB

Dedicated Video Memory: 512 MB

System Video Memory: 0 MB

Shared System Memory: 1722 MB

Forgive my ignorance of computers and lack of comp lingo if any of that isn't what you where asking.

Cheers.

[pendean]

If it changes on it's own while in the program, your video card/driver is having a hard time handling AutoCAD. Your PC is also low on system RAM, you have less than 2Gig left for AutoCAD/LT and Windows after the graphics card sucks 512MB away from it.

Are you in WindowsXP? 3Gig minimum. Same with Vista. Win7? 4Gig minimum.

[NormsAUS]

Thanks.

Yes I'm running Win7 here at work

RAM: 4.00 GB(3.86 Usable)

Local disk Space seems to be real empty and free.

Used 33.9 GB

Free 431 GB

It seems like the problem is a little more than just a settings change in AutoCAD. I don't often get this problem at work, more so when I go to college to study.

Thanks for the help.

[joehovarter · Accepted solution]

This is a bug in AutoCAD. It has been around since 2005. It has to do with how much screen space there is or atcual drawing window space. This can be changed by having tool palettes docked on the left and right of drawing window or by changing your command line height or font size. Over the years I have noticed that it only happens when having two drawings open. AutoCAD 2012 has seemed to do this with only one drawing open. Most people don't ever notice it because they use the same workspace.

Example to replicate: If you have rectangular pickbox, drag your command line up/down to change how many lines are shown. I.E. if two are shown drag up to show 3. Next type pickbox command and change size, mine is at 4 change it to 5, pickbox is now square. Now I run with command line off and recently started having this problem again because I switched to a widescreen monitor and moved my workspace around. I can hide the Model/Layout tabs and get the same effect.

I myself was doing a search to see if anyone else has has the problem and if it has been fixed. It has not.

[Charles_Shade]

As a test here I pulled the Command Line window off monitor two onto monitor one which diddrastically change the size of the drawing space. Pick box stayed square.

Then for the heck of it I changed the Ribbon to Tabs and again drastically changing the available Workspace the Pickbox was still square.

I also tried your sequence and the Pickbox stayed square throughout.

This and Circles being Ovals is typically a Windows setting where the Screen Resolution is not a native setting.

Try other screen resolutions for your monitor and see if the problem persists. You may have a griphics card problem.

Are supported graphics cards still listed at the top of this forum?

[joehovarter]

You don't have to drastically change the window size. It only has to be a pixel or so to get into the range that makes it rectangular. Remember you have to run the pickbox command at each change.

I will agree circles being oval is a sign of screen resolution. I do not have that problem. Circles are circles and pickbox is rectangular.

I attached two screen shots same window size only I hid/unhid the layout tabs.

[Charles_Shade]

What I was trying to get at is that I did not have the same problem here regardless of what I did to the workspace.

Hopefully others will be able to replicate and offer advice...

[NormsAUS]

It's good to know I am not the only one with this problem.

I haven't had it recently and normally it is when I am on other computers.

Playing with the command line could be a real simple change to fix the glitch.

THANKS JOE for posting, and uploading the photos.

I knew it wasn't a resolution problem or graphics card glitch, because other things would compliment it, ie circles and a whole heap of other things.

Thanks.

[Saimonn]

Yesss ! Great thanks for your solution !

[Anonymous]

The bug ain AutoCAD was much older and as far as I remember I had faced it in DOS era also.

There is no solution yet, but you can try to tweek pickbox and apreature box setings in options

Gouhar

[Imui]

How come you can see the pickbox and the cursor arrow at the same time?

[Anonymous]

Hi,

What I meant was that you can try to change sizes of these from options and
see if it can help

Regards,

Gouhar

[image: Inline image 6]


[image: Inline image 4]

[image: Inline image 5]

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

SOLVED!

You need to run AutoCad in Full-screen.  I was running AutoCad 2016 windowed and the rectangular crosshair was driving me crazy. Resizing the application window a few times also corrected the issue. 

[lamensterms]

Example to replicate: If you have rectangular pickbox, drag your command line up/down to change how many lines are shown. I.E. if two are shown drag up to show 3. Next type pickbox command and change size, mine is at 4 change it to 5, pickbox is now square. Now I run with command line off and recently started having this problem again because I switched to a widescreen monitor and moved my workspace around. I can hide the Model/Layout tabs and get the same effect.

This helped me.  Not sure what has been causing it, but it has been more frequent lately.

Thanks for the work-around.

[gggofn]

I have to say that this problem still exists even in AutoCAD 2017.

I am using dual monitors both at 1920x1080 recommended. The pickbox becomes rectangular when I maximize AutoCAD and it'll be square when windowed. I always remained command line off in old version ACAD and using floating command line when ACAD having this feature. So I don't think the command line is the cause of this problem, at least in my case it's not.