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Greetings!
Readers Weigh In on Book Reviews
Last issue, I wrote about the issue of one or two
disgruntled users who are littering Amazon with bad
reviews on assorted CAD texts. A few readers
responded with their perspective.
Donn Fishburn, a high school CAD instructor in Santa
Clara, wrote:
I suspect that a big part of the problem is the very low
reading skills of so many adults today. For all the talk
about improving reading instruction in the
schools, little progress has been made. I write 1 or 2
page worksheets for my
2nd and 3rd students to follow. It is very difficult to
get some of them to
follow the sheet because of their poor reading skills.
Lack of reading skills is and will continue to be the
single greatest obstacle to achieving an adaptable,
technically proficient workforce.
Jon Morey, another instructor, wrote:
I do not read [reviews]. I get a review copy from the
publisher and make my own decisions. There are too
many people with weak minds and large mouths.
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Transcripts in Revit 6 |
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The latest release of Revit includes control over
transcripting. Transcripts can be used to help recover
a damaged or corrupted file.
To set the number of transcripts to be saved, go to
Settings->Options. Select the General tab. At the
bottom of the tab, you can select how many transcript
versions to be saved and how many days worth to save.
The transcripts gives you the ability to clean up
previously created journals, which are located
in "C:\Program Files\Autodesk Revit 6.0\Journals".
They can be opened with a WordPad, NotePad, or any
other text-based program.
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Bringing Large Documents into AutoCAD Part II |
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A reader asked me for better instructions on how to
bring large documents into AutoCAD using the Generic
Printer option.
Your first step is to Add a Printer using your Windows
Control Panel. Select the Generic/Text Only Printer to
add.
Open the document you want to insert into AutoCAD.
Select Print. Set the printer to the Generic/Text
printer. Enable Print to File. Save the file as a *.txt
file in the location of your choice.
Now go to AutoCAD. Start the MTEXT command. Right
click in the edit window. Select the Import Text option.
Browse to the txt file you just created and select it.
Your file will be imported, complete with formatting,
headers, and footers.
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Matrox Graphics Video Cards - Just what the Doctor Ordered |
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At Autodesk University this year, I met with Liv Stewart
of Matrox Graphics to check out the latest video cards
for CAD users.
A lot of users make the mistake of throwing more
memory in their system thinking that will solve their
problem - when the issue is really their video cards.
Not all video cards are the same - and buying a video
card for gaming is NOT the same as buying a video card
for CAD work.
Matrox Graphics has a new line of video cards released
this year. Prices start under $300 - which is a great
deal for these high quality products. The pixel quality
is almost photographic. I especially like the way some
of the cards allow you to split between two or three
monitors with minimal hassle. Just plug and play.
If you are suffering from slow regens or jerky orbits,
consider upgrading your video card to a Matrox card.
Both the Parhelia and Millennium P-Series cards have
certified drivers for Autodesk products.
Check out the drivers... »
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Problems Reading the PDFs? |
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I have heard from a handful of users who are having
problems opening the pdfs on my website. They get a
corrupted file error.
A friend at Adobe checked the files and had no
problems opening any of them, so the problem is not
with the files.
If you have having problems opening the pdfs, make
sure you have the latest version of Adobe Acrobat
Reader AND the latest browser service pack installed.
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Free Inventor R8 CD Available Now! |
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If you've been tempted to try Inventor R8, but haven't
wanted the pressure of a sales call or just want to take
it for a test spin, Autodesk is letting users order a trial
CD for free.
The CD will time bomb out after 30 days - long enough
for you to try it on a project or just mosey around the
interface.
Inventor is growing into a very popular software. There
are now almost 40! texts available for Inventor. Is that
amazing or what? Right now, I'm the only author out
with a text on Release 8. My fundamentals text was
released last week.
My intermediate text on R8 should be available in two
to three weeks. If you are interested in programming
for Inventor, you will find that I have expanded the
Visual Basic section to really help you get started.
Order your Trial CD... »
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Customizing the Dictionary in Revit 6 |
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Revit 6 makes it very easy for you to customize your
dictionary to check for spelling errors.
Go to Settings->Options. Select the Spelling tab.
Select the first Edit button next to the Custom
Dictionary field.
A Notepad file will open. Simply type the words you
want to add to the dictionary and save the file.
Press F7 to check the Spelling on the active sheet.
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Creating a Calculator Tool |
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On AUGI's Top Ten Wish List was the desire for a tool
icon to bring up a calculator. However, you can create
your own calculator tool using the customization tools
available inside AutoCAD.
You can actually create a tool to call up any Windows
program (like Word or Excel) using the shell; *.exe;
macro.
Download the complete tutorial »
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Changing the Precision in Lisp |
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Scott Miller, from Indiana, uses the free insxls.lsp
routine I have provided on my website. He says it
works great, but the routine, as written, rounds the
point values to whole numbers. He wanted two decimal
places.
The following line of code needed to be revised:
(setq text-item (rtos text-item 2 2 ))
- rtos - converts a real number to a text string value
- text-item - variable that holds the point value
- 2 - indicates decimal mode (1-scientific, 2- decimal,
3- engineering,4-architectural, 5 - fractional)
- 2- indicates precision, in the original code it was set
to 0
If you are having problems or need help with one of the
free routines I have on the site, let me know and I will
try to make it work for you.
To check out the Moss Designs downloads... »
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