Setting Settings

First select go to “Options” which can be accessed by a “right-click” in the command line.

This will open the “Options” dialogue.

The Options dialogue has several tabs.  Each tab is the starting point for controlling the AutoCAD environment.

The “Files” tab is used to set configuration paths that AutoCAD uses to store information externally or settings that control its operation.

 The printer support file path and the template pathing is especially important since it controls both the Pen Tables/Plotter Configurations and the Civil 3D template (QNEW) with special projections that will be used. Setting QNEW to the correct file is paramount to problems later.

 

 

The Display tab controls how the AutoCAD drawing window looks.

Take special note that the colors of your display are controlled here, as well as

the smoothness of entities created. Setting “Arc and circle smoothness” too high

will cause performance degradation.  Many of these settings are user preference.

 

 The Open and Save tab controls the file properties and how the files are handled.  A few key items in this view are the AutoSave settings, Demand Load X-refs should be disabled and Retain changes to Xref layers should be selected.

 

 The Plotting tab controls plotter and related configuration settings.  Normally plotting is accomplished using defined “Plotter” setups and the System printers are hidden.  The default Plot Style Table should be set to the most frequently used CTB file so new drawings begin with this file.

 

 System tab is used for common hardware/software issues between AutoCAD and Windows.

Graphics Performance is normally disabled.

  

 

The User Preferences tab has a variety of miscellaneous settings.  Use the “Right-click Customization” to define which tasks are to occur in the drawing environment when the right mouse button is pushed (this affects AutoCAD only).  New dimension should be associative.  This means they will act as one entity.  This allows them to update when stretched or be realigned dynamically.  The alternative is for the dimensions to be created as separate entities.

  

 The Drafting tab controls your drafting tools settings.  Customize to suit.

 

 3D Modeling tab is only important if you model or view in 3D

 

 Selection tab is for controls on how objects are selected and how they act once selected.

 

 The profiles tab is used to manage and edit C3D profiles.  These profiles are used to control the creation of new drawings and the environments that control these drawings.  As an example, the selected profile controls things like the default units (Decimal), text fonts loaded, layers created, etc.

  

 The AEC Editor is for some additional general settings. The export to Autocad settings are important per the user’s preference.

 Lastly, please ensure the pipe parts list for C3D is correctly set to the shared pipe catalog on the network drive. Below is the correct pathing. Failure to complete this will cause problems when two different users with different paths modify a pipe network.

 This is found in the “pipes” pulldown and select “Set Pipe Network Catalog”.