Monday 15 April 2013

How to Make an AutoCAD Workspace Bigger

The workspace afforded in AutoCAD is dependent upon the size of your computer monitor, which makes wider monitors the clear choice for architects, drafters, engineers and other professionals who use AutoCAD on a daily basis. While toolbars and command bars are necessary when learning to use AutoCAD, if you've mastered key shortcuts for commands, they aren't always necessary. Hiding the toolbars gives you more space for drafting if you have a smaller monitor or are drawing a larger project.

Open a new AutoCAD sheet by clicking the AutoCAD logo, then "New" and "Project." Or, open your latest project from the AutoCAD logo to change your workspace while working on a specific project.

Right-click in the gray space at the top right-hand side of the page. Scroll down to "Show Tools." You can then toggle the toolbar options to remove tabs and toolbars you don't need. The more you remove, the larger workspace you'll have. Just remember to keep toolbars you use on a regular basis.

Scroll up to "Show Tabs" to toggle the tabs on and off. Remove the check mark beside a tab to remove it from your workspace. The tabs are fairly slim and don't take up much of your workspace, but if you know the correct short cuts for the tabs they are unnecessary. You can also show them at any time by right-clicking in the gray space and checking the toolbars and tabs you'd like to view.

Locate the command bar at the bottom of the page. The command bar allows you to view your latest commands for reference. You can shrink the command bar to increase your workspace by hovering your mouse over the command bar border until arrows appear. Click and drag the border downward for a smaller command line.

Right-click the "Layer" tab at the bottom of the page. Scroll down to "Hide Layout and Model Tabs."