One of the most attractive AutoCAD features is the amount of control available to you over the user interface (UI). This flexibility has been a major factor in the popularity of AutoCAD, which recognizes the diversity of disciplines, workflows, requirements, and preferences within our customer community.
For example, here's how someone might decide to customize the AutoCAD UI for 2D drafting to maximize their usable drawing area.
You can maximize your working space and reduce the UI complexity by hiding or removing rarely used controls. Here are some options you can consider if you're working on 2D drawings.
If you've never done so before, try this experiment:
There are some other techniques to try without resorting to this quick, but extreme measure.
The ribbon takes up a significant area in the application window. Instead of turning it off completely, you can cycle through several display modes.
When the ribbon is minimized, access to the tools on the Layers panel is not as convenient. However, you can add the Layer drop-down list to the Quick Access toolbar instead.
Here's the result.
Not everyone uses the Start tab, and you can turn it off if you prefer.
Two of the most commonly used palettes are Properties and Layer Properties Manager. Docking these two palettes together with the Auto-hide option is a tradeoff between losing two slices of the drawing area in exchange for instant roll-over access.
Rolling over or off this palette provides fast, temporary access when needed.
Notice that you can resize the width of a palette when it's displayed.
The user coordinate system is useful in some 2D drawings, and it's essential for 3D modeling. If you don't use the UCS frequently, you can easily hide it. The same is true for the ViewCube control and the Navigation bar.
The viewport controls are used primarily for 3D modeling. If you're not using them, you can hide these controls to reduce the visual noise in 2D drawings.
Reducing the user interface to the minimum that you normally use also applies to layout tabs. The only reason that the second layout tab is displayed in the lower-left corner is to demonstrate that you can create more than one layout.
The status bar includes common settings and controls. Turning off the controls you don't need is super easy.
Following these steps can provide a custom user interface that's clean, functional, and visually quiet. Naturally, you'll want to choose your own settings to suit your preferences and work style. Once set, your customized UI settings are stored in the Windows registry, or for drawing-specific settings, in individual drawing files (DWG) or drawing template files (DWT).
Hopefully, you'll be able to apply some of these ideas and suggestions to make your experience with AutoCAD satisfying and efficient.