AutoCAD® 2009 & AutoCAD LT® 2009 All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies®

Introduction

For many reasons, AutoCAD is much different from most applications that you will ever use. The main reason goes back some 20 years to when AutoCAD was introduced as a low-cost CAD solution on microcomputers. (CAD stands for Computer-Aided Drafting or Computer-Aided Design, depending on who you ask.) Most CAD applications back then ran on very large and expensive mainframe computers, not something that you could take on-site with you.

With the introduction of AutoCAD, CAD wasn't as foreign of a topic as it once was, but it still had an uphill climb against the wide use and adoption of drafting boards. A drafting board, you might be asking yourself? Yes, before computers and CAD, all designs were done with pencil and paper; if you were really good, you used ink and paper. Today, paper still plays a role in distributing designs, but most designs are now done in a CAD application that allows you to do much more complex things that were not possible with board drafting.

As times and drafting practices changed, AutoCAD has led in setting the pace for change or has forced change. Some of these changes have helped to usher in the era of improved design collaboration across the Internet and better electronic file sharing with non-CAD users. Because all objects in a drawing are electronic, AutoCAD allows you to quickly manipulate and manage them without the need to break out the eraser shield and eraser as you would on a board. You can also use design information downstream in ...