What’s New in ASCENT’s AutoCAD 2013 Fundamentals Training Guide and in the AutoCAD 2013 Software

By Lisa Kemp

We have all been working hard here, aiming to get the updated versions of our training guides to you as quickly as possible. My focus has been on the AutoCAD 2013 Fundamentals book. With this blog I wanted to highlight some of the new things that you will see in the training guide as it pertains to both the 2013 software and the changes we have made to improve the books.

In terms of general improvements this year, we have added Learning Objectives to the Chapters. The goal of these is to provide you with a high level list of the items covered in the training guide. Another exciting addition is of an Appendix containing the Professional Exam Certification Objectives. These objectives are also identified at the beginning of the corresponding sections in the book, enabling you to find the topics that you should be reviewing. As always we have continued to use the and images, we just made them a little more engaging to help them stand out on the page

 

The following are highlights of the new or enhanced software items in the training guide:

• Welcome Window: This window opens when the AutoCAD software is launched and is divided into three areas: Work, Learn, and Extend. These three areas are described in the training guide to provide new AutoCAD users with information on how they can get additional help.
• Command Line: You can now scroll through a list of commands to select the one that you want to use. The command list can be filtered by starting to type the command name. It changes to only display commands starting with the letters that you have typed.

When in a command, all of its options display in the Command Line and are highlighted in blue. This is an improvement that I use a lot, because I can now select the options directly in the Command Line by selecting the highlighted text. This is much faster than typing the option’s shortcut keys. This is taught at the beginning of the training guide and used in the practices throughout the Chapters.

• File Format: The drawing file format has been changed and drawings that are used in the training guide are saved in the 2013 version of the AutoCAD software.
• Object Properties: When I select an object and then hover the cursor over options in the Color or Linetype drop-down list in Object Properties, the selected objects display a preview of how they would look if the highlighted option were to be selected. This is covered in the lecture material in the training guide.
• Fillets, Chamfers, and Offsets: I find the preview that displays during the Fillet, Chamfer, and Offset commands to be very useful as it enables me to determine whether I need to make any changes before completing the command. This is covered in the lecture material and practices in the training guide.
• Arrays: The way the Array command is used has changed significantly. A default array now displays when you are creating a Rectangular, Polar, or Path array and you then modify it as needed before completing the command. You can also modify it once the command is finished. The practices related to working with Rectangular and Polar arrays have been updated to reflect the changes to the command and a new Path array practice has been added to the book.

• Quick View Drawings and Quick View Layouts: In Quick View Layouts and Quick View Drawings, the current layout or drawing displays a green border around the thumbnail and uses bold text in the title. All of the images in the training guide that relate to this have been updated.

• Viewports: There are now two ways to create viewports, depending on whether you are creating them in Model Space or in a Layout. For Model Space, there is a new Model Viewports panel in the View tab. For Layouts, there is a new Layout tab>Layout Viewports panel. This is covered in both the lecture material and practices in the training guide.

I hope this has helped give you an overview of the changes and improvements to the AutoCAD 2013 software and to ASCENT’s supporting training guide. I also just finished another exciting project that I know many of you will be excited about. I have created a metric only AutoCAD 2013 Fundamentals training guide. It is available now!

Comments

[Wadyth]

Hi Id like to know when you speak of these changes are you referring to working on PC or MAC because im currently using 2011 on mac and 2010 on PC.

[Lisa Kemp]

Hi, The changes are for working on a PC.