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AutoCAD Productivity

Original Dimension Value

by Michael Beall

From: AutoCAD Productivity Articles #143
Originally published: December 2015

Since the dimension text of an associative dimension is Mtext, double-click anywhere on an associative dimension and you can add additional information… or modify the value to what you want.

Dimension 1

But what if you want to put the dimension back to the original value?

Insights:
If you reposition an extension line origin grip of a dimension and the value doesn't change, the original value was modified.

If you double-click a dimension and the edit box has a white background — not blue — the original value was modified.

Dimension 2

Solution:
Double-click the dimension, then put the less-than and greater-than characters in the dimension box, like this… <>

The original value will be restored.

See all the articles published in December 2015

Michael's Corner

Between 2003 and 2016, Michael Beall (and one or two guests) wrote almost 600 articles for CADTutor. The focus of these articles is AutoCAD productivity, and although some of them are now more than a few years old, most remain relevant to current versions of AutoCAD. The article above is just one example. Check out Michael's Corner for a full listing.

Tip of the Day

Command line in a window (F2)

The command line can be very useful, especially for beginners because AutoCAD often gives useful prompts which helps when learning how to use some of the more complicated commands. The command line is also used by AutoCAD to report information back to the user, but sometimes that information may run to several lines of text, and disappear from view. A good example of this is the Distance command (you can run this from the keyboard by typing DIST). The problem is that by default, the command line is only two lines high and so if you use the Distance command, you don't even see the distance reported to the command line.

One way round this problem is to increase the depth of the command line to show more lines but this takes up valuable drawing area. A better solution is to display the command window using the F2 key on the keyboard.

Command Line

As you can see above, the command window also allows you to scroll back through the command line so that you can review your recent drawing history.

Today's tip is by David Watson

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