Drawing Lines and Rectangles

The drawing commands you'll probably use the most in AutoCAD are LINE and RECTANGLE. You will begin by drawing some lines and rectangles without worrying yet about entering measurements.

Drawing Lines

Lines are the backbone of AutoCAD. Let's begin drawing lines.

1. In Ch2-A.dwg or Ch2-A-metric.dwg, zoom into the living room in the lower right of the floor plan so that empty space fills the canvas.
2. Turn off all status toggles in the application status bar. Status toggles are highlighted in blue when they are on and appear in gray when they are off (see Figure 2.7).

   You will use some of the status toggles in Chapter 3, “Using Drawing Aids.”

   

   FIGURE 2.7 All status toggles shown are off.

3. Type L and press Enter. Click two arbitrary points to define a line object. Observe the flexible segment (called a rubberband) connecting the cursor with the second point you clicked (Figure 2.8).

   

   FIGURE 2.8 Drawing a line