54
AutoCAD and Its Applications—Basics
Saving Your Work S a ving Your Work
You should save your drawing or template immediately after you begin work.
Then save at least every 10 to 15 minutes while working to avoid the possibility of
losing your work. Several AutoCAD commands allow you to save your work. In addi-
tion, when you close a file or exit AutoCAD, an alert appears asking if you want to save fi
changes. This gives you a final opportunity to save or discard changes. fi
File Storage and Naming
Store drawings on your computer or a network drive according to school or
company practice. Back up fi les to a removable storage device or other system to help fi
reduce the possibility of permanently losing information during a system failure.
Develop an organized structure of file folders, and use subfolders as needed fi
to help organize each project. Using a standard naming system allows you to find fi
drawings quickly and easily by content, category, or other criteria. For example, you
might save all of your textbook exercises to an
Exercises
folder, or create chapter-
specifi folders to store exercises, tests, and problems. An example of a mechan- fic
ical drafting project is a main folder titled
ACME.4001
based on the company name
ACME, Inc. and project and assembly number 4001. An example of an architectural
drafting project is a main folder titled
2012MEYERS01
to identify the first Meyers fi
Residence project of 2012.
The name you assign to a file is one of several fi file properties. fi File naming is
typically based on a specific system associated with the product and approved fi
drawing standards. A file name should be concise and allow you to determine the fi
content of the fi le. A basic example is the file fi naming scheme applied to exercises fi
in this textbook. For example, save Exercise 2-1 as EX2-1. Figure 2-3 provides other
examples of drawing file names. File name characteristics vary greatly depending fi
on the product, specific drawing requirements, and drawing standard interpreta- fi
tion and options.
Rules and restrictions apply to naming folders and files. When naming files, fi you fi
can use most alphabetic and numeric characters and spaces, as well as most punc-
tuation symbols. You can use 255 characters. You cannot use the quotation mark (“),
asterisk (*), question mark (?), forward slash (/), and backward slash (\). You do not
have to include the fi le extension, such as fi
.dwg
or .dwt, with the file name. File names are fi
not case sensitive. For example, you can name a drawing PROBLEM 2-1, but Windows
interprets
Problem 2-1
as the same file name. fi
PROFESSIONAL E O O N TIP T T P P R O R O F FE S S I O NA A L T T I P NA AL T TI P
Use the
NEW
command to override the quick start template and
display the
Select template
dialog box. This allows you to use the
QNEW
command to begin a drawing by referencing the template you
use most frequently, but access other templates as needed.
NOTETEOT N OT
The US National CAD Standard (NCS) includes a comprehensive file fi
naming structure for architectural and construction-related draw-
ings. You can adapt the system for other disciplines.
NEW
Type
NEW
file properties:
Values used to
define a variety
of file and design
characteristics.