As I mentioned in a previous post, there are many tools available to help you learn AutoCAD. Some of my favorite resources are the AutoCAD Preview Guides. Okay, I might be a little biased because I wrote these. But, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve referred back to them over the years.
The AutoCAD Preview Guides are brief documents that describe everything that was added to the newest release of AutoCAD. I guess I should clarify “brief”. Some of these documents are quite large (up to 50 pages). But, don’t be intimidated! They include many images so that you can see and understand what has been added to AutoCAD even if you don’t yet have the software installed. That’s why they’re called “Preview” Guides!
The Preview Guides don’t go into great detail as far as how to use the various new AutoCAD tools. Instead, they describe the new features, why they’re useful, and how to access them. If you’re considering upgrading from an older release of AutoCAD to the most current version, the Preview Guides can be a great resource to help you learn everything that may be new to you! For example, if you’re upgrading from AutoCAD 2015 to AutoCAD 2018, you’ll want to take a look at the Preview Guides for AutoCAD 2016, 2017, and 2018. Keep in mind there may be a few tools that were added in an earlier release and then modified or, on rare occasions, removed in a more current release. In addition to the main AutoCAD Preview Guides, you'll find some additional versions documenting what was added in the updates for AutoCAD 2017 and 2018.
I’ve created an AutoCAD Resources page on this blog as a central location for some of my favorite websites, documents, and videos. I’ll continue to add to the list and I welcome suggestions for your favorite AutoCAD learning content as well
The preview guides are my favorite, too! I can't tell you how many times I've pulled them up from your list and looked back at old releases. There is ALWAYS something in the list of features which I missed that version, which helped improve my productivity years later.
Posted by: Melanie Perry | February 20, 2018 at 10:51 AM