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AutoCAD Tips & Tutorials

Speed up your work with command aliases

I usually provide menu, toolbar, or ribbon access for commands, but the quickest way to work is to type command aliases on the command line. You just need to know them. Print out this list and keep it by your computer for a couple of weeks until you learn them. You'll be amazed at how much faster you work.

ARC a
BLOCK b
CIRCLE c
COPY co
ERASE e
EXPLODE x
EXTEND ex
FILLET f
HATCH h
INSERT i
LAYER la
LINE l
MOVE m
MEXT t
OPTIONS op
PLINE pl
PROPERTIES pr
ROTATE ro
TABLE tb
TOOLPALETTES tp
TRIM tr
UNDO u
XREF xr
ZOOM z

Do you have your own favorites? Use the Email a Tip link on the left to send them in and I'll add them.

AutoCAD comes with a large number of aliases already made for you. You edit the acad.pgp file to add to these, or change them. The acad.pgp file is a text file and you can edit it directly, but the easiest way is to use the Express Tools ALIASEDIT command.

John Palmer wrote in: "I use PE (polyline edit) when I want to turn a line into a polyline."

Brian A. Glover wrote in: "Here are a few of the keyboard aliases that I use all of the time:

AS Align Space
CS Change Space
CC Circle (I changed 'C' to copy because I copy 100 times a day, and draw maybe 10 circles a week)
CB Copy Base
ET Enclose Text
XX Extrim
QQ Quick Leader
TTF Text-to-Front

I try to use keys close together on the keyboard, or use the same key so I don't have to take my eyes off the screen when I'm working."

Gerald Goodlander wrote in: "I changed the following because Copy is used much more than Circle:

CI Circle
C Copy

Related tips

Tutorial: Create a command alias (keyboard shortcut)

Create a custom keyboard shortcut

Keyboard shortcuts

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101 Tips

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Books by Ellen

AutoCAd 2010 Bible

AutoCAD 2010 & AutoCAD LT 2010 Bible
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AutoCAD 2008 and AutoCAD LT 2008 Bible
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AutoCAD 2007 and AutoCAD LT 2007 Bible 
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