Chapter 11: Edit for Credit 223

Copy between drawings

You can’t copy or move objects from one drawing to another with the COPY command. Instead, you use the COPYCLIP or CUTCLIP commands together with their companion command, PASTECLIP.

COPYCLIP, CUTCLIP, and PASTECLIP use the Windows Clipboard to temporarily store drawing objects from one file so they can be pasted into another file. The Clipboard panel on the Ribbon contains Cut, Copy, and Paste tools, the three standard Clipboard buttons you find in every Windows program.

As you’re figuring out where things are lurking in the AutoCAD 2013 Ribbon, remember that the standard Windows keyboard shortcuts — Ctrl+X (cut), Ctrl+C (copy), and Ctrl+V (paste) — are still available and are often the most efficient way of using the Windows Clipboard — even after you’ve found the Clipboard panel!

Table 11-2 summarizes AutoCAD’s most important Clipboard-related commands, along with the equivalent choices on the right-click menu and Ribbon’s Clipboard panel. (The Classic Standard toolbar buttons’ tooltips display the same names.)

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224 Part II: Let There Be Lines

Stretch

The STRETCH command is superficially similar to COPY and MOVE; it has the same interesting base point and displacement prompts, and it shifts objects to other locations in the drawing. But it also has one big important difference: It can move one end of one or more objects, leaving the other end or ends where they are so you can use it to change the length of lines, for example. Here are the things you need to know to make STRETCH your friend:

Selecting objects to stretch: To use STRETCH to change the length of objects, you must select objects by using a crossing selection box (or crossing polygon), as described in Chapter 10. See Figure 11-3 for a visual explanation.

Figure 11-3: Use a crossing selection box to select objects for stretching.

Defining points: STRETCH operates on the defining points of objects — endpoints of a line, vertices of a polyline, the center of a circle, and so on — according to the following rule: If a defining point is within the crossing selection box that you specify, AutoCAD moves the defining point and updates the object accordingly.

For example, if your crossing selection box surrounds one endpoint of a line but not the other endpoint, STRETCH moves the selected endpoint and redraws the line in the new position dictated by the selected endpoint’s new location. It’s as though you have a rubber band tacked to the wall with two pins, and you move one of the pins.

Compressing and stretching: STRETCH can make lines longer or shorter, depending on your crossing selection box and displacement vector. In other words, the STRETCH command really combines stretching and compressing.

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Chapter 11: Edit for Credit 225

Getting in the mode: Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, you may want to turn on Ortho or Polar Tracking mode before stretching. Figure 11-4 shows the results of an Ortho and a non-Ortho stretch.

Figure 11-4: The hazards of stretching without ortho or polar tracking turned on.

The following steps describe how to stretch lines:

1.Draw some lines in an arrangement similar to the dark lines shown in Figure 11-5.

Start your stretching with simple objects. You can work up to more complicated objects — polylines, arcs, and so on — after you’ve limbered up with lines.

2.Press Esc to make sure that no command is active and no objects are selected.

3.Click the Stretch button on the Modify panel of the Ribbon’s Home tab.

The command line displays the Select objects prompt with a warning to use the Crossing or CPolygon object-selection mode:

Select objects to stretch by crossing-window or crossingpolygon...

Select objects:

4.Pick points to specify a crossing selection box that encloses some, but not all, endpoints of the lines.

Figure 11-5 shows a sample crossing selection box that completely encloses the two vertical lines on the right side of the figure. This crossing selection box cuts through the four horizontal lines, enclosing only one endpoint of each.

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226 Part II: Let There Be Lines

Unselected lines don’t move.

Selected lines being dragged to new location

Figure 11-5: Dragging objects in the middle of the STRETCH command.

You specify a crossing selection box by picking a point, moving your mouse to the left, and picking a second point.

5. Press Enter to end object selection.

AutoCAD displays the following prompt:

Specify base point or [Displacement] <Displacement>:

6.Specify a base point by object snapping to a point on an existing object or by typing absolute X,Y coordinates.

AutoCAD displays the following prompt:

Specify second point or <use first point as displacement>:

Toggle Ortho mode on and then off by clicking the Ortho Mode button on the status bar; try moving the crosshairs around first with Ortho on and then with it off to see the difference.

Figure 11-5 shows what the screen looks like as you move the crosshairs around without benefit of ortho or polar tracking.

7.Toggle Ortho mode on (if it isn’t already), and then specify the second point — usually by using direct distance entry.

You can also specify the second point by object snapping to a point on an existing object or by typing relative X,Y coordinates.

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