33 Copyright Goodheart-Willcox Co., Inc. Learning Objectives After completing this chapter, you will be able to: ✓ Start a new drawing. ✓ Save fi les. ✓ Close fi les. ✓ Open saved fi les. ✓ Work with multiple open documents. ✓ View and adjust drawing properties. ✓ Determine and specify drawing units and limits. ✓ Create drawing template fi les. In this chapter, you will learn how to start new drawings, save drawings, open existing drawings, and begin the process of preparing drawing template fi les. This chapter also explains commands and options that assist in organizing and setting up a drawing session, including basic drawing settings. You will fi nd the drawing settings described in this chapter very useful as you begin working with drawing and drawing template fi les. Starting a New Drawing St a rting a New Dr a wing AutoCAD uses several different types of fi les for specifi c functions. The primary fi le types are drawing fi les, which have a .dwg extension, and drawing template fi les, also known as templates, which have a .dwt extension. You typically begin a new drawing by referencing a template. A new drawing based on a template includes all of the template settings and content. To help avoid confusion as you learn AutoCAD, remember that a new drawing fi le references a drawing template fi le, but the drawing fi le is where you prepare the new drawing. You can also start a new drawing from scratch. Starting from a Template Use the QNEW command to begin a new drawing. By default, the Select template dialog box appears when you access the QNEW command. See Figure 2-1. You can use the QNEW command to start a drawing without displaying the Select template dialog box by setting up the quick start template, as described in this chapter. drawing files: Files you use to create and store drawings. drawing template files (templates): Files you reference to develop new drawings contain standard drawing settings and objects. QNEW Quick Access New Drawings and Templates CHAPTER 2 2