AutoCAD® 2012 FOR DUMMIES®

What's Not (And What Is) in This Book

Unlike many other For Dummies books, this one does sometimes tell you to consult the official software documentation — such as it is. AutoCAD is just too big and complicated for a single book to attempt to describe it completely.

AutoCAD is also too big and complicated for a book like this to cover every feature. I don't address advanced topics like database connectivity, customization, or programming, in the interest of bringing you a book of a reasonable size — one that you'll read rather than stick on your shelf with those other 1,000 page tomes!

Autodesk likes to keep its users (and us authors!) guessing about new features in future releases of the software. AutoCAD 2009 surprised users and authors alike with a totally revamped user interface, replacing the drop-down menus and toolbars of previous versions with a Microsoft Office 2007–style Ribbon (happily, Autodesk doesn't force its users to adopt the new look the way Microsoft does — there's still an “AutoCAD Classic” interface available). The new interface got some tweaking in AutoCAD 2010 — 2009's Menu Browser, which essentially duplicated the pull-down menu structure, was replaced with a better-thought-out Application Menu.

AutoCAD 2010 also delivered two significant new features — parametric drawing and organic (or free-form) 3D modeling. The changes in AutoCAD 2012 are relatively minor compared with those: AutoCAD added inferred constraints to its parametric toolbox, and 3D benefitted ...