AutoCAD® 2009 & AutoCAD LT® 2009 Bible

Chapter 29. Customizing Commands, Toolbars, and Tool Palettes

Customizing AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT can increase your efficiency and productivity. The time spent in preparation will be paid back many times. Before you start customizing, you need to know some basics that apply to almost all customization tasks. After you understand these basics, the process becomes much easier.

Overall, AutoCAD LT offers less customizability than AutoCAD; however, most of the features in this chapter apply to both AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT.

Working with Customizable Files

The capability to customize AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT is based on the fact that many of the support files are text files that you can edit yourself. The menu and tool palettes are in XML files that you customize using the Customize User Interface dialog box and the Customize dialog box. Table 29.1 lists the most important files and their functions.

Figure 29.1 shows a portion of one of these files, acad.pgp, which lists command shortcuts, or aliases. The equivalent file for AutoCAD LT is acadlt.pgp.

Figure 29.1. You can edit the acad.pgp file to create keyboard shortcuts for AutoCAD commands.

Table 29.1. Customizable Files

AutoCAD Filename	AutoCAD LT Filename	Function
sample.cus	sample.cus	Custom dictionary file. You can add words to the custom dictionary for use with the SPELL command.
acad.pgp	acadlt.pgp	Program parameters file. This file is generally ...