Rachid khouriAutoCAD in 30 Minutes: Beginner’s Quickstart Guide
Understand the Essentials. Explore with Confidence.
This guide is a preview, a first step, a way to understand what AutoCAD is and how it works—without getting overwhelmed.
AutoCAD may seem intimidating at first—with all its buttons, commands, and options—but at its core, it’s just a smart way to draw. This guide gives you a clear and friendly introduction to the most essential things you need to know:
- What AutoCAD is and what it’s used for
- How to open, save, and organize drawings
- How to use the basic tools: draw, zoom, move, copy, trim, and more
- How to work with layers, dimensions, blocks, and layouts
- How to preview and print your work properly
You’ll learn the real basics—the tools and habits that every beginner should know—without getting lost in technical jargon.
Think of it as your first guided tour of AutoCAD. By the end, you’ll know your way around, you’ll understand how the software “thinks”, and you’ll be ready to dig deeper with confidence.
Whether you’re a student, hobbyist, technician, or future designer, this guide will help you start strong and see the big picture.
Ready? Let’s dive in. In 30 minutes, you’ll go from “I have no idea” to “Now I get it.”
Basics
Let’s start with the basics of using AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT.
When you open AutoCAD, you’ll see the Start tab. From there, you can click New to start a fresh drawing or Open to work on something you’ve already started.
Drawing Tabs
When you start a new drawing, it opens in a tab named Drawing1 (or something similar). These tabs sit right above the drawing area. You can click between tabs to switch from one drawing to another, or to go back to the Start tab.
If you see a little asterisk (*) next to the file name, it means you haven’t saved your changes yet. To close a drawing, just click the X on its tab.
Feel free to test things out: start a drawing, open another, and switch between them. You can even drag the tabs to change their order.
The Ribbon
At the top of the screen, you’ll find the Ribbon—a bar with tabs full of buttons and tools. Most of the tools you need are in the Home tab, especially the ones we’ll use in this guide.
There’s also a Quick Access Toolbar above the ribbon. It includes helpful commands like New, Open, Save, Print, and Undo.
Tip: If you’re not on the Home tab, click it now.
The Command Window
The Command window is a big part of AutoCAD. You’ll usually find it at the bottom of the screen.
This is where AutoCAD talks to you—it gives you tips, options, and messages. You can type commands here instead of clicking through the ribbon. Many experienced users prefer this because it’s fast.
As you start typing, AutoCAD suggests commands. You can choose one by clicking it or using the arrow keys and pressing Enter or Spacebar.
The Mouse
Most users use a mouse. It’s your main tool to point, click, and right-click.
Tip: Right-clicking often gives you shortcuts. Depending on where you click, you’ll get different useful options.
New Drawings
When starting a new drawing, it’s good to follow certain standards—like for text size, dimensions, or line types.
For example, in a deck design, you might want different styles for different kinds of measurements.
To make things easier, AutoCAD lets you start with a drawing template that already includes settings.
When you click New, you’ll see a list of templates:
- acad.dwt or acadlt.dwt = for inches
- acadiso.dwt or acadltiso.dwt = for millimeters
There are also some “Tutorial” templates made for architecture or mechanical designs in both inches (i) and metric (m). Try them out if you’re curious.
If you’re working for a company, they probably have their own template files. Ask your CAD manager before changing anything.
Create Your Own Drawing Template File
You can turn any drawing (.dwg) into a template (.dwt) to reuse your settings.
Here’s how:
- Open an existing template
- Make the changes you want
- Save it again with a new name as a .dwt file
If you’re working alone, feel free to make templates that match your personal style. To open a template, click Open, change the file type to Drawing Template (.dwt), and select your file.
Important: If your company already uses set templates, always ask before modifying them.
Units
When you begin a new drawing, one of the first things to decide is what one unit means. Is it an inch, a foot, a millimeter, or something else?
Two shapes might be 125 units long—but that could mean 125 feet or 125 millimeters depending on the units you choose.
Unit Display Settings
Use the UNITS command to set how measurements are shown:
- Format: You can choose between decimal (like 6.5) or fractional (like 6-1/2).
- Precision: Show numbers as 6.5, 6.50, or even 6.5000 depending on how exact you want.
If you’re working in feet and inches, set the type to Architectural. If you’re using metric, use Decimal.
Note: This only changes how values look. It doesn’t affect how accurate your drawing is.
Tip: If you like your unit settings, save them in a template so you don’t have to reset them every time.
Model Scale – What It Really Means
When you’re working in AutoCAD, you should always draw your objects at their real-world size—this is called drawing at full scale or 1:1 scale.
So, for example, if you’re designing a wall that’s 10 feet long in real life, you should draw it as 10 units in AutoCAD. If you’re using inches, that’s 120 inches. If you’re using millimeters, you’d enter 3048 mm.
You don’t need to shrink or enlarge anything while drawing. Just pretend you’re building it in the real world—the size you use is the size it actually is.
What About Printing or Showing the Drawing on Paper?
When it’s time to print your drawing on a sheet of paper, AutoCAD lets you scale the view of your model using layouts and viewports.
This means:
- You keep your model full size in the model space.
- In the layout space, you can zoom in or out to fit the model nicely on the page.
- You set the print scale (like 1/4″ = 1′-0″ or 1:50) to match industry or project requirements.
So, draw full size now, and worry about the paper size and scale later.
In short: Model space = real size, Layout space = scaled view for printing.
Recommendations
Here are a few helpful tips to make your experience smoother:
- Press F1 for help anytime you’re stuck.
- Press Enter or Spacebar to repeat the last command.
- Right-click objects or interface elements to see useful options.
- Press Esc to cancel any command or action.
If you ever click in the drawing area and something unexpected happens, just press Esc—it’s your best friend when you’re not sure what’s going on.