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Define your own toolbar in AutoCAD

Post a Comment May-21-2008 | Posted by Eren Pala | Printable Version | Level |

AutoCAD 2003 and earlier versions

Hi,

Today, I am going to mention how Autocad® toolbars are defined and how they bring ease to our drawing.

First let us see, how defining shortcuts make our job easier. You can easily run commands by pressing a single button once you assign to them. For instance, before closing a drawing, most of us save it and then exit. Instead, a single button assigned for save and exit does the same job. Let us make an example button.

Figure.1 Toolbar Customize Dialog Box

Click Toolbars from the View menu. Customize Dialog Box should appear (Figure 1). First of all, let us form a new toolbar. To do this, pass to the Toolbar tab and press ‘New’ button. Enter the desired name for the new toolbar into the pop-up menu and select the location of it. The standard toolbars are located in the ACAD menu group. We do the same; select the ACAD menu since we use the new command in that menu and then close the window.

Once we form our new toolbar, the next step is defining our new buttons on it. To do this, pass to the ‘Commands’ tab (Figure 2) and drag and drop the User Defined Button into the toolbar and thus we’ll have a new blank button. Right clicking on it, the box automatically pass to the ‘properties’ tab (Figure 3).

Figure.2 Adding User Defined Button

Figure.3 Toolbar Button Properties Tab.

We have already added our new button; it is time to assign its command. Firstly, it has to be named. You can enter some information about the button into the ‘Description’ part. And the last step is adding the desired commands into the button by using ‘Macro Associated with This Button’ option. Blanks have to be added after each command (Figure 4)

Figure.4 Adding Button Properties

Any icon from the right section in the menu can be assigned to our new button or you can design a new one in Icon Editor by pressing ‘Edit’ option. If you did everything correctly, the newly defined button should be seen on the Autocad toolbar like the one in Figure 5.

Figure.5 The Newly Defined Button

The method I have told above is suitable for Autocad® versions 2004 and older. The process is different in newer versions which I am going to mention in my future articles.

Regards.

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