Drafting Tools in AutoCAD

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Drafting Tools in AutoCAD - Snap and Grid

By Jos Van Doorn

We've got snap and grid in AutoCAD. Let's talk about
snap and grid. Let's see how we can use it and why we
would use it.

Snap restricts the cursor movements to specified
intervals. That is handy. Lines will have a specific
length.

Still. If you're using object snaps than you can pick a
point that is not on an interval that has been
specified. We'll talk about object snap later.

With grid switched on dots are displayed in the screen.
The dots help to visualize distances. Often the grid
interval is the same as the snap interval.

That is important. You can have grid dots displayed in
the screen. Now you want to print your drawing. The
dots are not printed.

OK. We know what snap and grid are. But we want to know
more. We want to know how we can set the intervals and
how we can switch it on and off.

Let's start with setting the intervals. There are two
ways for doing that. Whatever way you choose. You do it
over the Drafting Settings dialog box.

Click on Tools in the menu bar. A pull down menu shows
up. In the pull down menu click on Drafting Settings.
The Drafting Settings dialog box is displayed.

There are four tabs in the Drafting Settings dialog
box. The Snap and Grid tab is in front. That's exactly
what we want.

In the dialog box we see two check boxes and we see
four areas. The checkboxes can be used for switching on
or off snap and grid.

Let's have a look at the Snap area and the Grid area.
First the Snap area. In that area you can enter values
for the spacing.

You can enter a value for the X spacing and you can
enter a value for the Y pacing. The spacing set the
interval I was talking about.

There is more you can do in that area. You can enter an
angle, an X base, and a Y base. The angle gives the
angle of the snap intervals.

Most of the time you do not change the angle. You leave
the angle at zero. But the X base and the Y base.
What's that?

The X base and the Y base gives the starting point of
the snap. As before. Do not change it. Leave it as it
is. At zero.

You now know how you can do the settings for the snap.
You do it in the Snap area of the Drafting Settings
dialog box.

But we can also do something with the settings of the
grid. That is done in the Grid area of the dialog box.
This time we can do less.

We can only change the X spacing and the Y spacing. We
cannot change the angle or the X base and Y base of the
grid.

This is what is done most of the time. Most of the time
the spacing for the grid is the same as the spacing for
the snap.

That is what is happening. The grid follows the snap
settings for angle and the X base and Y base. So there
is no need to change those settings.

This is what we now saw. You can do the settings of the
snap and the grid in the Drafting Settings dialog box.
And you can switch them on and off.

Before I continue. I must tell you about the third area
in the Drafting Settings dialog box. It is the Snap
style and type area.

For the snap type we can set Grid snap and we can set
PolarSnap. If we go for a Grid snap type then e can
select a rectangular snap or an isometric snap.

If you're creating isometric drawings, then you want to
go for an isometric snap. The snap will have the
isometric angles.

I'm not going to talk about PolarSnap now. I will do
that later. I will do that as we're talking about Polar
Tracking. In the next article.

But there is another way. Look at your screen. Do you
see the status bar? In the status bar there are two
buttons.

In the status bar there is the Snap button and there is
the Grid button. You can click on the buttons. To have
snap and grid switched on and off.

Something else you can do with the buttons. You can
right click them. If you do a short cut menu is
displayed.

If you right click the Snap button then you'll find the
following options in the shortcut menu:

- PolartSnap On

- Grid Snap On

- Off

- Settings

If you right click on the Grid button then you'll find
the following options in the shortcut menu:

- On

- Off

- Settings

You can imagine where the on and off options stand for.
Those options can be sued to switch snap and grid on or
off.

But we already saw. There is a quicker way. We can also
click on the Snap and Grid buttons in the status bar.
In fact. There is another quick way.

You can press the F7 function key to switch grid on or
off. And you can press the F9 function key to switch
snap on or off.

Oh. In the shortcut menu under the Snap button you also
see the PolarSnap On option. As I said before. We'll
talk about it alter.

But there is the Settings option in the shortcut menus
under the Snap button and the Grid button. Click on
that option.

If you do the Drafting Settings dialog box is opened.
We already have seen what can be done in the Drafting
Settings dialog box.

But this is what we now know. Using the shortcut menu
under the Snap and Grid button. That is a quicker way
to open the Drafting Settings dialog box.

This is it for today. Now you know everything that you
need to know about snap and grid. Tomorrow we're going
to talk about polar tracking.

See you tomorrow.

This is the first article in a series of five articles. F- R- E- E. Written by Jos van Doorn. To get the other articles. Send a blank e- mail to:

draftingtools@aweber.com

There are more AutoCAD articles. Would you like to know? You can find them here:

http://www.autocad-articles.blogspot.com

Jos van Doorn. AutoCAD specialist and AutoLISP programmer.

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