Heidi Hewett's Blog

Request for participants in Denver!

If you live in the Denver area and want to contribute to the future of AutoCAD, there are still a few spots left for the Denver-area Sneak Peek and Test Drive of new AutoCAD features.

Also, while members of the AutoCAD design team are in town, they are interested in conducting a site visit to observe AutoCAD users in action! If you work in the Denver area and want to learn more about this unique opportunity to contribute to the future of AutoCAD, please contact Shari Nemerovski (415-507-8217). As a resident of the Denver area, I’m particularly excited about these exciting LOCAL events!

I hope to see you there!

Free AutoCAD Training

AutoCAD 2008 has powerful new tools to help simplify everyday tasks and increase productivity. Begin taking advantage of these tools by joining me for two free AutoCAD training webcasts.

Best Practices for Annotation Scaling
Tuesday, September 4th

One of the most powerful new features in AutoCAD 2008 is Annotation Scaling. You no longer need to do the math to get your text, dimensions, hatches and blocks to display at the correct scale in paper space. Join me for this informative session and learn how AutoCAD 2008 will do the work for you.

AutoCAD Tips & Tricks
Thursday, September 6th

I’ll take you on a tour of some of my favorite “must-use” features since AutoCAD 2004. You might be surprised to learn functionality that has been at your fingertips for years. Then, take a closer look at new and improved features in AutoCAD 2008 including text columns, data linking, multileaders, and more!

Visit the Autodesk web site for more information and to register.

25 years of AutoCAD!!

Can you believe AutoCAD has been around for 25 years? Like many of you, I’ve been using it for most of those 25 years. My first experience with AutoCAD was in a college drafting class 21 years ago. Using a stylus, I drew an ellipse and watched it move and stretch on the monochrome screen… right in front of my eyes! How cool was that???  No lead. No ruler. And, best of all, no eraser crumbs!!! Ahhh… that is when I fell in love with AutoCAD (Okay… go ahead. Laugh!)

AutoCAD has come a long way in the past two and half decades! From the stylus to a wireless wheel mouse. From monochrome to True Color. From the screen menu to the dashboard. From 2D to 3D. The list goes on and on. To honor AutoCAD’s past 25 years of design innovation, Autodesk has created an interactive Web site were you can learn more about the history of AutoCAD and take a stroll down memory lane. You can view the AutoCAD timeline, test your knowledge of AutoCAD history, download podcasts from customers that have relied on AutoCAD to grow their businesses, and view the AutoCAD “family tree”.

Attention San Francisco and Denver area AutoCAD users

If you are located in the San Francisco or Denver area, you have a rare opportunity to test drive some new features in AutoCAD and contribute your feedback to future releases. 

The AutoCAD Product Design and Usability team would like to invite you to join them for a sneak peek and test drive of a future version of AutoCAD, focusing on changes to the user interface and productivity enhancements.  Members of the AutoCAD team will be there to introduce you to new and enhanced AutoCAD features. 

In a casual focus group style, the design team wants to share with you their design-ideas-in-progress and ask for your input as they solidify their ideas for an upcoming release.  They’ll include time at the end of the session for general feedback and they’ll be happy to discuss any issues, future directions, or wish list items with you at that time.  Your input is critical in shaping the future of AutoCAD and the AutoCAD team depends on and values your ideas.  After this session the design team will make key decisions based on your input. 

Plan on spending the day (9am to 5pm) to meet the team and participate in hands-on sessions with the next release.  Snacks and lunch will be provided.

San Francisco Area (San Rafael) - September 5, 2007

Denver Area (Thornton) – September 11 or 12, 2007

Interested in attending the event?  Here’s what they are looking for:

• Day to day users of the software
• Users not proficient in LISP or scripting
• Users configuring the interface for other users
• All levels – beginning to advanced

Seats are limited so please contact Shari Nemerovski (415-507-8217) to register for this exciting event.

I hope to see you there!

Mtext Numbered/Bulleted lists

When you create notes in a design drawing, you often need to format them with bullets or sequential numbers/letters. Although you can insert bullets, numbers, and letters manually, it is time consuming and manual lists are difficult to maintain. Fortunately, beginning with AutoCAD 2006, creating and editing bulleted, numbered and lettered lists is easy. You can apply list formatting to selected text within the Mtext editor by selecting Lettered, Numbered, or Bulleted from the Text formatting toolbar. The user interface changed slightly in AutoCAD 2008 when the three original buttons (Bullets, Numbering and Lettering) were combined into a single flyout button with menu options. The same flyout menu is displayed when you right-click in the Mtext editor.

The first four options in the menu (Off,  Lettered,  Numbered, Bulleted) enable you to specify the type of formatting (if any) to apply to the selected paragraph. Since an Mtext object can include multiple paragraphs (each “Enter” creates a new paragraph), you can use multiple types of formatting within a single Mtext object. The Restart and Continue options enable you begin sequencing a new list or to continue the sequence from the previous list. They don’t affect Bulleted lists.

If you enable the option to Allow Auto-list, AutoCAD automatically applies numbered/lettered formatting when you begin a paragraph with a number or letter followed by one of the following special characters: period (.), comma (,), close parenthesis ()), close angle bracket (>), close square bracket (]), or close curly bracket (}). If you begin a paragraph with other special characters (i.e. @ # $ % ^ & *-), AutoCAD automatically applies bullet formatting using the special character as the bullet. After entering the special character, whether it is for numbered/lettered lists or bulleted lists, you must press the spacebar or Tab key. The paragraph won’t actually convert to list formatting until you press the Enter key to continue to the next line.

If you find Auto-list helpful but, at times, a little too presumptuous, you can limit its behavior by turning on the option to Use Tab Delimiter Only. When this option is turned on, as it is by default, AutoCAD only applies automatic list formatting if you press the Tab key following the special character. It does not apply list formatting when you press the spacebar.

The last option on the menu is to Allow Bullets and Lists. If you turn off this option, the rest of the menu options are disabled and any items with existing list formatting are converted to plain text.