AutoCAD® 2010 For Dummies®

Chapter 12. A Zoom with a View

In This Chapter

• Zooming and panning

• Naming and restoring views

• Zooming and panning in paper space layouts

• Regenerating the display

One of AutoCAD's advantages over manual drawing is its ability to show you different views of your drawing. You can zoom in close, zoom out to a great distance, and pan around. In fact, not only can you zoom and pan in your drawing, but in most kinds of drawings, you must do it frequently to be able to draw and edit effectively.

Technical drawings are jam-packed with lines, text, and dimensions. Zooming and panning frequently enables you to see the details better, draw more confidently (because you can see what you're doing), and edit more quickly (because object selection is easier when there aren't a zillion objects on the screen). This chapter covers AutoCAD's most useful display control features.

Zoom and Pan with Glass and Hand

Moving your viewpoint in to get a closer view of your drawing data is zooming in; moving your viewpoint back to get a more expansive view is called zooming out. Moving your viewpoint to another part of your drawing without zooming in or out is called panning.

Changing your viewing position lets you do detailed work on tiny objects and then zoom out and move around rooms, houses, or neighborhoods from an Olympian perspective. Early versions of AutoCAD included a sample drawing of our solar system, drawn to scale with kilometers as units, that proved this. If you zoomed all the way out, you could see Pluto's ...