AutoCAD 2004 for Dummies

Author: Mark Middlebrook List Price: $24.99 Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price ISBN: 0764540459 Publisher: For Dummies (21 April, 2003) Edition: Paperback Sales Rank: 12,728 Average Customer Rating: 3.5 out of 5

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Customer Reviews

At the risk of sounding defensive, I have to say that "A reader from Somerville, MA USA" doesn't accurately represent the book - or AutoCAD. There never was an AutoCAD R3.3. Perhaps this reader means Architectural Desktop 3.3, which was built on AutoCAD 2002.

AutoCAD 2004 doesn't offer new ways to xref. As Chapter 1 of the book describes, AutoCAD 2004 does provide some welcome improvements for working with xrefs, including "a simple method of opening xrefs for editing, more sensible xref search paths, xref change notifications, and a Reference Manager utility." The book addresses all of these changes in Chapters 13 and 15.

AutoCAD 2004's plotting system is in almost all respects identical to the one that Autodesk introduced in AutoCAD 2000 - in other words, plotting didn't change substantially in AutoCAD 2000i, 2002, or 2004. Nonetheless, Chapter 12 of the book does discuss the new shaded viewport plotting options and the incompatibility of AutoCAD 2004's new True Color capability with traditional color-dependent plot styles (CTB files).

So this reader is mistaken about what has changed in AutoCAD 2004 and whether what *has* changed is covered in AutoCAD 2004 For Dummies. Those who want to see what I regard as the most important new features in AutoCAD 2004 and where they're covered in the book can see for themselves on pages 15 and 16 of the "Look Inside" sample pages available from this Web page.

I will agree that this book is not for someone who is well-versed in a recent version of AutoCAD, although I think that the book will help people who are upgrading from old versions (e.g., AutoCAD R14) or whose skills have grown a little rusty. The coverage of new and advanced features is in most cases brief because this is a concise book for beginners rather than a 1200-page tome that attempts to cover everything.

The most important changes in this edition of AutoCAD For Dummies are:

- Coverage of the interface and command changes in AutoCAD 2004, including the new tool palettes, xref improvements, and mText tabs and indents.

- A new "Introduction to 3D" chapter that describes the concepts and commands required in order to get started creating 3D models in AutoCAD. (This one-chapter introduction doesn't pretend to make you an expert in 3D modeling - full treatment of the subject requires a separate book.)

- A new "CAD Standards Rule" chapter that introduces readers to the "why, what, and which" of CAD standards and then discusses the CAD standards checking and enforcement tools in AutoCAD 2004.

- A significantly updated "Drawing on the Internet" chapter that covers the new Reference Manager, PUBLISH, and drawing protection features.

As with the previous edition, this book is for users of AutoCAD 2004 *and* AutoCAD LT 2004. I'm not writing a separate LT book this time around. Instead, I've noted the differences between AutoCAD 2004 and AutoCAD LT 2004, which are few for the purposes of a book of this type.

And as with all of the previous editions, AutoCAD 2004 For Dummies is not just about how to run commands. Throughout the book, I emphasize real, practical techniques for creating technical drawings with AutoCAD. In my view, that's the real strength of the book.

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