CADTutor

Learn AutoCAD with our Free Tutorials

Welcome to CADTutor

CADTutor provides the best free tutorials and articles for AutoCAD, 3ds Max and associated applications along with a friendly community forum. If you need to learn AutoCAD, or you want to be more productive, you're in the right place. See our tip of the day to start learning right now!

Free Tutorials and More…

The Tutorials section provides over 100 original tutorials for AutoCAD, 3ds Max and other design applications. Michael’s Corner is an archive of productivity articles that brings you the best AutoCAD tips and tricks. Our Forum is a lively community where AutoCAD users can ask questions and get answers. The Downloads area provides free AutoCAD blocks, free AutoLISP routines and free images.

Tutorials of the Moment

Recently viewed tutorials

CADTutor Tutorials

Our tutorials are comprehensive but straightforward introductions to AutoCAD and related software. They are designed to help beginners get to grips with design workflows as quickly as possible. There are over 100 to choose from, some text/image based and others in video format. Whatever stage you are at in your learning, you should find a tutorial to help.

Forum Latest

Currently Active Topics

This Week's Hot Topics

CADTutor Forums

Our forum is a vibrant community of experts and beginners. The main focus is helping beginners get to grips with AutoCAD and to help more advanced users become more productive. The AutoLISP forum is one of the busiest out there, providing expert advice for busy professionals.

AutoCAD Productivity

Text Frame on Mtext

by Michael Beall

From: AutoCAD Productivity Articles #148
Originally published: October 2016

Yes, you can Enclose Text in Objects from Express Tools — See Michael's Corner, June 2004 — but when using the Text Frame property on Mtext, the frame adjusts when you size the Mtext or change the text content!

A text frame

Just select your Mtext, open Properties [Ctrl 1], then set Text Frame to <Yes>.

To test it, change the size of your Mtext or edit the content and the frame automatically adjusts!

See all the articles published in October 2016

Michael's Corner

Between 2003 and 2016, Michael Beall (and one or two guests) wrote almost 600 articles for CADTutor. The focus of these articles is AutoCAD productivity, and although some of them are now more than a few years old, most remain relevant to current versions of AutoCAD. The article above is just one example. Check out Michael's Corner for a full listing.

Tip of the Day

Add your name to the status bar

modemacroHave you ever wanted to see your name or your company's name displayed on the AutoCAD status bar? If so, you need to know about the modemacro variable. Whatever value you set this variable to will appear on the status bar, just to the left of the dynamic co-ordinate display. To do this, enter "modemacro" at the command prompt and then enter the text you'd like to display.

The assigned value of modemacro remains set only for the current drawing session. If you'd like to see your text displayed every time you start AutoCAD, simply add the following line to acad.lsp:
(setvar "modemacro" "text to display")

Today's tip is by India

Missed a Tip?

Did you miss yesterday's tip? Maybe you forgot to drop by or maybe you don't visit over the weekend. If so, you can now see all the tips published during the past week. Also, if you have a tip you'd like to share with us, you can post it on our forum and if we like it, we'll publish it here.