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Whenever you make changes in AutoCAD settings that affect the Windows Registry, those changes become part of the current profile.

To use the profile or another profile, choose Tools Options and click the Profiles tab. Choose the profile and click Set Current, or double-click the profile. Click OK to return to your drawing. You see the results immediately. Of course, some settings are not visible but make themselves evident in other ways, such as AutoCAD classic keyboard shortcuts and the creation of a log file.

Tip To start AutoCAD with a specific profile, you can specify a profile using a command-line switch, as explained in the next section. You can also export a profile (click the Export button) to share it with colleagues or use it on another computer. To use an exported profile, click the Import button on the Profiles tab of the Options dialog box.

Starting AutoCAD Your Way

When you choose the AutoCAD icon to open AutoCAD, Windows notwithstanding, you execute a statement similar to the one old-timers once typed at the DOS prompt. This is called a command-line statement. By default, it looks something like c:\Program Files\AutoCAD 2006\acad.exe or c:\Program Files\AutoCAD LT 2006\aclt.exe. Your exact commandline statement depends on where you installed AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT.

Using command-line switches

You can add parameters, called switches, to this command line and control what happens when you start the program. Always add a space between the acad.exe or aclt.exe command and a switch. Before any switch, you can add the name of a drawing to open that drawing. You need quotation marks around any path or drawing name that contains spaces. Table A-1 lists the available command-line switches and their functions.

Table A-1: Command-Line Switches

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You can combine switches. For example, the following command-line statement opens the drawing “Union Hill Apts” in the front view and runs the setup script.

C:\Program Files\AutoCAD 2006\acad.exe “c:\drawings\Union Hill Apts.dwg” /v front /b setup

To change the command-line switch, follow these steps:

1.Right-click the shortcut to AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT on your desktop.

2.Choose Properties.

3.Click the Shortcut tab.

4.In the Target text box, add your switches to the end of the current command-line statement.

5.Click OK.

Understanding configuration files

Every time you open AutoCAD, a configuration file is created. By default, this file (acad2006.cfg for AutoCAD or aclt2006.cfg for AutoCAD LT) is an ASCII file containing mostly hardware-configuration information for your mouse and digitizer. Figure A-12 shows the beginning of the default file.

If you use multiple pointing devices — for example, a large and a small digitizer — you may want to create more than one configuration file to make it easy to switch from one configuration to another.

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You should not edit the configuration file; instead, let AutoCAD create it for you. The problem is that AutoCAD assumes one configuration file and overwrites the previous one whenever you make changes that affect the file — such as adding a pointing device.

Figure A-12: The acad2006.cfg file.

Remember that you can use the /c command-line switch to specify a configuration file. To create a new file, follow these steps:

1.Use Windows Explorer to back up your current configuration file under a new name, such as acad2006-orig.cfg.

2.Open AutoCAD and make the pointer change that you want on the System tab of the Options dialog box. (If you’re installing a new digitizer, follow the manufacturer’s instructions to install the digitizer.) Click OK.

3.Close AutoCAD.

4.In Explorer, find the new acad2006.cfg file that AutoCAD created. Change its name, using something meaningful, such as LargeDigitizer.cfg.

5.If you want to keep the original acad2006.cfg file, change its name back to acad2006.cfg.

You now have two configuration files. (You can create more if you want.) To use them, you can change the command-line switch as needed, but there’s an easier way, as explained in the next section.

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Creating multiple configurations

This appendix has discussed three different ways to create session configurations:

Profiles

Configuration files

Command-line switches

You can use command-line switches to specify a profile and a configuration file, as well as to configure AutoCAD in other ways, such as opening a drawing with a certain template or running a script file when you open a drawing.

If you regularly use these features, you should create multiple configurations to make it easy to open AutoCAD the way that you want by doing the following:

Create the profiles and configuration files that you need.

Make as many shortcuts as you need.

Note To create a new shortcut, use Explorer to find acad.exe (usually in AutoCAD 2006) or aclt.exe (usually in AutoCAD LT 2006). Right-click it and choose Create Shortcut from the menu. Drag this to your desktop and rename it.

Change the command-line switches to specify the profiles and configuration files that you want, and add any other command-line switches that you need.

For example, here are command lines for two separate AutoCAD desktop shortcuts. You could make similar command lines for AutoCAD LT.

C:\Program Files\AutoCAD 2006\acad.exe /t acad /nologo

C:\Program Files\AutoCAD 2006\acad.exe /p steve /c steve.cfg /t arch

The first command-line statement opens drawings using the acad.dwt template and doesn’t display the logo. It also uses the default profile and configuration file.

The second command-line statement opens drawings using the arch.dwt template and displays the logo. It also uses the steve profile and the steve configuration file.

You could also have each configuration run different script files. This technique takes some time to set up, but after it’s done, it saves you time and reduces errors each time you open AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT.

Configuring a Plotter

Windows supports many printers. To add a printer supported by Windows, choose Start Settings Printers (and Faxes) and double-click Add Printer. A printer added in this way is called a Windows system printer.

The Windows system printer drivers are great for small desktop printers because that’s their intended use, but they aren’t optimized for pen plotters or large-format plotters. For this purpose, AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT come with nonsystem drivers. These drivers are specially designed for CAD. You cannot use them with other Windows applications.

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Using the Plotter Manager

To configure a non-system plotter, use the Plotter Manager. (You can also use the Plotter Manager to create custom settings for a system printer.) You have several ways to open the Plotter Manager:

From Windows, choose Start Settings Control Panel and double-click Autodesk Plotter Manager.

From within AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT, choose File Plotter Manager.

From within AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT, choose Tools Options. On the Plot and Publish tab, click Add or Configure Plotters.

The Plotter Manager has a wizard (double-click Add-a-Plotter Wizard) that guides you through the process of configuring a printer. Follow the instructions on each page, which vary based on your previous choices.

For more information, see the “Use Plotters and Printers” section in the Help system. Choose Help Help and then choose Driver and Peripheral Guide (twice) from the Contents tab.

During the process of configuring a plotter, you can import a PCP or PC2 configuration file that was created with an earlier release.

The result of configuring a plotter is a plotter configuration file that has a file name extension of .pc3. These PC3 files are saved in the Plotters folder. (To find the PC3 files, choose

Tools Options and click the Files tab. Double-click Printer Support File Path and then doubleclick Printer Configuration Search Path.) You can share configured plot files with colleagues or copy them to another computer, such as a notebook computer. You can configure more than one plotter. You can also create more than one configuration for a single plotter. To use a PC3 file, choose it from the Plot Device tab of the Plot dialog box.

At the end of the Plotter Manager Wizard, you can click Edit Plotter Configuration to change the default settings for your plotter. You can also click Calibrate Plotter to test that the plotter plots accurately.

Editing a plotter configuration

You can edit a plotter configuration and change its original settings. You can access the file in several ways:

As just mentioned, click Edit Plotter Configuration at the end of the Plotter Manager Wizard.

From within AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT, choose File Page Setup Manager. Click Modify. In the Page Setup dialog box, choose the plotter that you want and click Properties.

From within AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT, click Plot on the Standard toolbar. Choose the plotter that you want and click Properties.

From Windows Explorer, double-click a PC3 file. The location of the PC3 files is listed on the Files tab of the Options dialog box, under Printer Support File Path Printer Configuration Search Path.

A PC3 file is not an ASCII file. When you open a PC3 file, you see the Plotter Configuration Editor dialog box, as shown in Figure A-13.

The General tab lists basic information about the plotter. This tab does not contain any options that you can configure, although you can add a description of the plotter and its settings.

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Figure A-13: The Plotter Configuration Editor is the place to change settings related to your printer or plotter.

The Ports tab enables you to choose to plot through a port (the usual situation), plot to a file, or use AutoSpool to plot to a printer spooler. If more than one port is available, then you can choose and configure the port.

The Device and Document Settings tab contains plotting options, depending on your plotter.

As you select an item from the top part of the Plotter Configuration Editor, the appropriate options become available on the bottom of the dialog box. You can configure the following (your plotter will probably show different options):

Media: The source and size of the paper.

Physical Pen Configuration: Correction for filled areas (for extra accuracy), pen optimization for faster plotting, pen color, pen speed, and pen width.

Graphics: Color depth (the number of colors), monochrome, resolution, and dithering.

Custom properties: Vary by plotter. For Windows system printers, you might find settings such as draft printing and grayscale (for color printers).

Initialization Strings: Rarely used nowadays. If you’re plotting to an unsupported plotter, you may be able to prepare the plotter for printing, set options, and restore the plotter to its original state using ASCII text initialization strings.

User-Defined Paper Sizes and Calibration: Calibrate a plotter, create custom paper sizes, and change the plottable area of standard paper sizes.

When you finish making changes, click OK to save the changes to the PC3 files. You can also click Save As to create a new PC3 file. Click Default to return all settings to their defaults.