Toolbars And The Menu Bar

while the main form of interfacing with AutoCAD is through the ribbon and the command line there are other methods of executing commands in AutoCAD
they are the menu bar and toolbars out-of-the-box these two forms of input are turned off now way back before AutoCAD 2009 came out they were the main forms of interfacing with AutoCAD but they were replaced by the ribbon the ribbon keeps everything in one central place where toolbars can be spread out all over your screen with some of them on and some of them turned off if you’ve used AutoCAD in the past then you are very familiar with toolbars they work just fine and if you prefer to use them and then go ahead there’s no real right or wrong way to use AutoCAD use the way that you are familiar with and the way that works best for your working style if you haven’t ever used them before then I suggest that you stay with the ribbon but I wanted to point them out to you so that you would be aware of them in case you came across some users interface that has been set to take advantage of them the menu bar is very similar to the ribbon instead of tabs there are menus like blue file draw modify etc all of your commands can be found in the appropriate menu just like in the ribbon if you are new to the ribbon but familiar with the menu bar you can turn it on and nobody will get too upset with you but again if you are brand new to AutoCAD I say stay away from them and stick with the ribbon in the application menus instead if you want to get to the toolbars in the menu bar AutoCAD has a workspace called AutoCAD classic turn it on by switching workspaces while your workspace is your user interface screen in AutoCAD it can be arranged in many different ways for any reason you want to AutoCAD has four main workspaces right out-of-the-box you can change them up here in your quick access toolbar
click on the arrow and select the one you want for the majority of this training video we will be using the drafting and annotation workspace but there is also the 3d basics and the 3d modeling the Fourth Kind is AutoCAD classic and AutoCAD LT if that’s what you’re working in right now
you’ll notice you don’t have the 3d modeling and basics workspaces that’s because AutoCAD LT does not have 3d functionality in it so therefore he don’t need those commands but otherwise it works the same way to turn on the classic workspace just click it this will get rid of the ribbon turn on many of your toolbars some of your tool palettes in the menu bar
it looks very different doesn’t it yes it does we’ll talk about tool pilots later on they’re fantastic and are very useful and very easy to customize as well
I’ll click here to close them but as you can see the menu bar resembles the ribbon
well since the menu bar was there first I think it’s more appropriate to say that the ribbon resembles the menu bar but here’s your file here you have a lot of the commands
it has icons in it so it’s a little visual
but it’s mostly text-based you have your recent files down here on the list of what you’ve been working on your utilities plotting
opening saving etc
if you want to edit
minutes
to draw like in the draw panel you come here and here are your command line circle arc etc just click the command you want and everything else functions the exact same way as before
there are also toolbars these are your toolbars you can click them drag them wherever you want you can close them by clicking on the X if you right-click anywhere on the toolbars you can get two different toolbar groups these are all the toolbars that you can turn on with the checkmarks on them are the ones that are on right now
one you want and it will come on here it is you can turn it off again now if you’ve turned off a toolbar and you don’t know which one it was you turned off you’ll just have to go back until you find one listed
that’s not on
turn it on the toolbars will appear into the last place you had them
if we move it over here but then turn it off and on again this is where it will appear
find the one that you turned off and turn it back on pretty simple so as you can see the toolbars are all over the screen here’s the line command I just pick it and go for it
again use what you want the toolbars and the menu bar were the standard of drawing in AutoCAD for many years until the ribbon came by moving from this interface to the ribbon interface was difficult for many users however I have found that the ribbon is much more intuitive because it does not spread the commands throughout your screen the ribbon keeps everything in a centralized place keeps them in one place I know where to go when I need the command but you can work however you want you can use the ribbon and turn on the tool bars all at the same time and just add them to it that’s up to you if you don’t like this you can always go back to the drafting and annotation workspace
now you can turn the menu bar on without turning on any of the toolbars just type on the command line
menu bar press Enter it has two settings zero and one zero is off one is on and now I have the menu bar it’s going to take up a little bit more screen but it’s here
here are my options for the file draw
dimension etc
so if you’re moving from the old style to the new style of interface for AutoCAD and you’re watching this video you may want to turn on your menu bar and use it I’m going to leave it turned off for the remainder of this training video because I think the ribbon is a better situation however what’s right and what’s wrong is relative again so use the form of input and interface that suits your needs best