Mac users can also now save their layer settings as Layer States, which store information like color, linetype, and information about whether a layer is turned off, frozen, or locked.

Autodesk has wrapped up its user conference, Autodesk University, this past weekend in Las Vegas, but the company today is announcing the details for the 2018 update release of AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT for the Mac. Architosh got a chance to talk to AutoCAD Product Manager, Rajeshree Dembla, about the newest updates and features. What’s New for AutoCAD on the Mac—2018 Version Updates User-Interface and Workspace Autodesk continues to attack user-interface (UI) refinements and issues with AutoCAD on the Mac, sometimes, as in the past, inventing UI ideas and first deploying them on the Mac version of AutoCAD before they make their way to the Windows version. New this year are tabbed palettes so users who work with say two monitors at work but with one monitor at home have lots of flexibility in their user interface arrangements.

“It means you can split your palettes up and put them all on one display while maximizing your workspace on the second display,” says Rajeshree Dembla. The palettes are also contextual and can be activated by command prompt in addition to clicking on them directly. 01 – New tabbed palettes support in AutoCAD 2018 for Mac. She adds: “Another new feature is that you can hide palettes to the extreme right of the monitor by clicking on double right arrows.” Hovering over the name will bring the palette back. While the user-interface allows ever more personalization in the manner in which the user works, Autodesk in this release is tackling a pain point each user experiences when updating to the next version—the migration of custom settings. Now in version 2018, for the first time, the user can seamlessly migrate their custom settings and files from AutoCAD 2017 for Mac to this latest release.

02 – Migration of custom settings is now supported for seamless adoption of version 2018. The migration utility will automatically start the first time the user launches the new AutoCAD 2018 for Mac. The user can then select which settings to migrate (see image 02). Commands, Selections, and Plotting A big new feature for AutoCAD this year on Mac is the Command Alias Editor. “This is a feature that already exists on the Windows version of AutoCAD”, Dembla clarifies when asked about it, “but now Mac version users have the same power.” If you are a user who was trained to use AutoCAD with commands, then this new feature is going to be greatly appreciated.

The Command Alias Editor allows the user to build shortcuts for frequently used commands. (see image 03) This means you build your own names (aliases) for commands and enter them at the command prompt to minimize keystrokes and avoid having to memorize long and complicated command names. 03 – The new command alias tool will greatly be appreciated by AutoCAD veterans now on the Mac platform. Another new capability in is the ability to begin a selection window in one part of your drawing and pan and zoom to another area of the drawing and maintain the selection of the off-screen objects at the completion of the pan or zoom. Also new in this release is a great overhaul of the macOS’s default print and page setup dialogs that appeared in past version of AutoCAD for Mac.

Need for speed underground 2 soundtrack. Autodesk has provided a new plot and page setup dialog that provides all the settings in one screen, including plot paper size, orientation, scale, plot style, 3D viewport shading and quality settings, and other print options. You can also save your settings and later import those settings and apply it to the active layout. And the creation of a PDF version of your plot is also streamlined. 04 – The FLATTEN command takes 3D objects and flattens them into 2D projections and can work from various sides of a 3D object. And speaking of PDF, AutoCAD 2018 for Mac features new tools to support importing SHX text from PDF files.