AutoCAD Platform Customization: User Interface, AutoLISP, VBA, and Beyond

AutoCAD Platform Customization is the most comprehensive guide to streamlining and personalizing the AutoCAD platform. The AutoLISP and VBA programming languages open up a myriad of customization options, and this book provides expert guidance toward applying them to AutoCAD, Civil 3D, Plant 3D, and other programs based on the Autodesk AutoCAD platform. Detailed discussions backed by real-world examples and step-by-step tutorials provide user-friendly instruction, and downloadable datasets allow for hands-on learning. Through customization you can increase screen real estate, streamline workflows, and create more accurate drawings by unleashing powerful programming languages that allow the user to command the software how to work, instead of the other way around.

AutoCAD customization is commonly performed by system administrators and CAD managers, but senior drafters and savvy users are increasingly taking customization into their own hands. AutoLISP and VBA are two popular and versatile tools that allow for going beyond the boundaries of normal user interface customization options, allowing users to:

• Enforce drawing and CAD standards, and automate repetitive tasks
• Customize the workspace, including tool sets, ribbon tabs and panels, and palettes
• Modify graphical objects, set system variables, integrate with external software, and more
• Manage blocks, change the interface, create dialog boxes, and communicate with Microsoft Office applications

The ideal design environment puts the tools you need right at your fingertips, removes unnecessary steps, and fosters precision through good communication. Customizing, including applying AutoLISP and VBA to AutoCAD, enables all of this and much more. For the designer who needs to work smarter because it's impossible to work any harder, AutoCAD Platform Customization provides the key information, insight, and techniques that will help to increase your productivity with AutoCAD.

LEE AMBROSIUS is a Principal Learning Content Developer for the AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT products at Autodesk. He has worked on end-user and API documentation for eight releases, presented customization and programming sessions at Autodesk University for a decade, and has authored and coauthored several AutoCAD-related books.