Douglas R. Seidler

Are you looking for a good, free replacement for Microsoft Word? Are you tired of e-mail word documents between your home and school? Google Docs now allows you to view and edit your documents offline, without an internet connection. (You can currently only edit word documents offline; you can only see spreadsheet and presentations offline)

When you are working without an internet connection, you can access all of your Google Docs by typing http://docs.google.com into your browser or by clicking on the desktop shortcut that is installed with your first sync.

When you’re offline, your edits are stored on your computer until you re-connect to the internet, at which point your changes are synced with Google Docs’ servers.

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Looking for a specific material for your SketchUp model? Tired of the default SketchUp Materials? The SketchUp Materials Bonus-Pack contains some new great-looking materials that you can use to spice-up your SketchUp models.

They are currently available for Windows only. SketchUp’s website promises a Mac version in the near future.

Once you download the Material Bonus Pack and install it on your computer, SketchUp will add several categories to your material palette.

SketchUp Materials Bonus Pack

SketchUp will also expand the number of materials in previous categories.

SketchUp Stone - Default Materials

SketchUp Stone Materials - with Bonus Pack

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Douglas R Seidler is the author of Digital Drawing for Designers: A Visual Guide to AutoCAD.

In a perfect world we are used to double-clicking on Text, Lines, Attributed Blocks, etc. and seeing a properties / edit box. When you double-click most objects in AutoCAD, the Properties palette is displayed. I recently found a computer on campus that had this feature disabled.

Double-Click Edit (DBLCLKEDIT) determines if AutoCAD displays specialized editors that are more powerful, convenient, or frequently used. Objects that display specialized editors when double-clicked include:

• Attribute: Displays the Edit Attribute Definition dialog box.
• Attribute within a block: Displays the Enhanced Attribute Editor.
• Block: Displays the Edit Block Definition dialog box.
• Hatch: Displays the Hatch Edit dialog box.
• Leader text: Displays the In-place Text Editor.
• Multiline: Displays the Multiline Edit Tools dialog box.
• Multiline text: Displays the In-place Text Editor.
• Text: Displays the Edit Text dialog box.
• Xref: Displays the Reference Edit dialog box.

Here is how you can enable this on your computer:

1. open any AutoCAD drawing
2. type DBLCLKEDIT and press ENTER
3. type ON and press ENTER
4. type PICKFIRST and press ENTER
5. type 1 and press ENTER

note: These variable are saved in AutoCAD not the drawing file, so it will affect all other drawings opened on your computer.

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Douglas R Seidler is the author of Digital Drawing for Designers: A Visual Guide to AutoCAD.

Have you ever wanted to trim a line to an apparent intersection? This allows you to quickly modify your drawing without adding extra construction lines. AutoCAD 2005 had this feature enabled by default (which is where I first used it), but 2006 seems to have disabled it. I wanted it back.

The system variable is called EDGEMODE and controls how AutoCAD determines cutting and boundary edges.

The following steps will turn this feature On:
(Extends or trims the selected object to an imaginary extension of the cutting or boundary edge)

1. open any AutoCAD drawing
2. type EDGEMODE and press enter
3. type 1 and press enter
4. This variable is saved in AutoCAD not the drawing file, so it will affect all other drawings opened on your computer.

The following steps will turn this feature Off:
(Uses the selected edge without an extensions)

1. open any AutoCAD drawing
2. type EDGEMODE and press enter
3. type 0 and press enter
4. This variable is saved in AutoCAD not the drawing file, so it will affect all other drawings opened on your computer.

Applies to: AutoCAD R12, 13, 14, 2000, 2000i, 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2006

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Douglas R Seidler is the author of Digital Drawing for Designers: A Visual Guide to AutoCAD.

I’ve received many requests to export the layers in an AutoCAD drawing to a text file (to set up office standards etc.)

The following steps will list all the layers (and layer properties) in the command prompt:

1. open the AutoCAD drawing
2. type -la and press enter
3. type ? and press enter
4. press enter
5. you can copy / paste the list of all your layers into Microsoft Word etc.

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Douglas R Seidler is the author of Digital Drawing for Designers: A Visual Guide to AutoCAD.