AutoCAD® 2009 & AutoCAD LT® 2009 Bible

Chapter 6. Drawing Simple Lines

Lines are the most commonly drawn object in 2D AutoCAD drawings—you'll use the LINE command a lot! Straight edges just happen to be very common in the real world. Related commands for drawing rectangles, polygons, and construction lines are also important, so you should have all these commands in your arsenal. This chapter explains how to draw all these types of objects.

Using the LINE Command

The LINE command draws straight line segments. Part I included several exercises in which you drew lines. However, the LINE command has several options, and you can still learn a few tricks of the trade by focusing on the actual LINE command.

If you continue to draw line segments, the subsequent prompts are different. Here's how to use them:

• The command displays the Specify next point or [Undo]: prompt for the next two segments. Right-click (or press the down-arrow key if you have Dynamic Input turned on) and choose Undo (or type u ↵) to undo only the last line segment that you created—without exiting the LINE command.

• After creating at least two line segments, the command displays the Specify next point or [Close/Undo]: prompt. Right-click (or press the down-arrow key if you have Dynamic Input on) and choose Close (or type c ↵) to automatically draw a line from the endpoint of the last segment to the original start point, thereby creating a closed figure. You can ...