Little Known CAD Commands That Rock, Part 1

As most CAD users are aware, there are a ton of commands that you have access to in any AutoCAD-based software. Along with those platform commands are the commands that are specific to their respective software. Specific examples that come to mind are creating alignments or surfaces in Civil 3D. Creating GIS data in Map 3D. Or even creating wall elements in AutoCAD Architecture. There are very well-known commands for the users of each software and even several AutoCAD commands such as creating a polyline or text are very well known as well.

What about some other commands that may not be discussed a lot? Are there some that are useful? The answer is YES! This blog is intended to be Part 1 in a series that will focus on some under-publicized commands that I think you will find have some pretty cool uses. Just to be clear, the majority of the commands I will mention can be used on all AutoCAD-based software, but if I do mention any that are software-specific, I will let you know.

Now that you know what this blog is about, let’s get to it! The first command I will discuss is “RTEXT”. What is that? It stands for “Remote Text”. Does this mean it is in a galaxy far, far away? (Special Shout Out to StarLord James here) No, it’s not far away! Remote Text is a way for you to have a text file that works kind of like an Xref. Check out my video below to see how this works.

The next thing I am going to discuss is actually a system variable, not a command. I will sprinkle a few of these “SYSVARs” in during this blog series. The first that I will discuss is “OBJECTISOLATIONMOD”. Wow! That’s a mouthful! There are only 2 settings for this; 0 and 1. What does it control? Have you ever used the isolate or hide objects commands when you right click? If not, select items and then right click and go to the “Isolate Objects” flyout.

Feel free to contact me if you have questions about that. Getting back to the SYSVAR, this controls whether object isolation or hiding is temporary for the current drawing session, or, is something that is saved when the drawing is saved. A setting of “0” makes it temporary for the current drawing session, and a setting of “1” saves this from session to session. This can be a handy setting to know about if you use these options.

The next command I will talk about is the Fast Select command. This one is an Express Tool but I like to use it without going to the ribbon at all. In the video below, I will show you how to use this command and options it has.

The last command that I will discuss for this part of the series is the “MULTIPLE” command. What is this you might ask? I will show you specifically in the video link below, but basically, type in “MULTIPLE” at the command line, select a command, and it will continuously repeat that command until you hit the escape key.

So that’s it for part 1 of this series. Be sure to check back for the upcoming installments of this series as I will continue to discuss more commands that you might find useful.

View Part 2   View Part 3   View Part 4   View Part 5  View Part 6