Shaft Fits Disappeared

In AutoCAD Mechanical, there is a dimensional feature that can add ISO fit tolerances such as H7 or f6 and such. A user lost his list if fits and wanted to get them back. The problem was that his Mechanical VAL tables were lost (how, I do not know). To fix them, we copied a set from a working computer to "C:\Users\Public\Documents\AutoCAD Mechanical 2012\ACADM\GEN". We copied the VAL folder and all of its subfolders to get them restored.

Boxed in text

This one doesn't come up too often, but when it does it is slightly hard to find. If you need to make a resizing box around your text in AutoCAD, try the TCIRCLE command. Just type in TCIRCLE and select the text you need to "box in", enter your preferences, and wala "boxed in text".

Viewport Layer Changes on Creation In Layout

A user had his Viewport Layer change upon creation of the viewport from modelspace to paperspace. He created it in modelspace on layer AM_VIEWS and when creating the viewport in Layout Space, it would switch to the current layer. The solution was to go into OPTIONS >> AM_STANDARDS and check the state of the checkbox "Apply new settings to layers...". This setting can get out of sync at times.

Commands and dialog boxes incorrect behavior

A user here began having strange behavior issues in his AutoCAD sessions. His explode and purge programs would not open as command line entries (even when he typed in "_PURGE", etc..). His LISP routines would pop up dialog boxes even when the variables were to set to keep them closed. Through a lot of diligence on his part, he found that the variable QAFLAGS might be the culprit. He looked at his setting and it was set to 17. All other users here were set to 16. He set it to 16 and tada, his AutoCAD is back to normal. A great find on his part. I hope this might help others.

Exploding Arc Text in AutoCAD

We needed to explode the arc aligned text in AutoCAD to import it into another program. Exploding the text made it revert to the wrong text and using the Express Tools Explode Text did not work. To get what we needed we first added a text style with the font we desired. We exploded the arc text with "explode" command. We then selected all of the text, changed its style property to the style with the font we wanted, and then used the Express Tools "explode to text" command. This got us very very close to what we needed and worked out well.

AutoCAD file refuses to open - stuck at 93%

I have had a terrible time with a group of dwg files that would not open. No matter what I did, they would not open (always stopping at 93% open). We create 2D dwg files from NX6 drafting files and have really not had any issues until yesterday. I tried opening the files in AutoCAD 2010, AutoCAD 2009, tried inserting like blocks, tried Recover, tried drag and drop. Nothing helped. Funny thing, I can open them quickly and smoothly in Dassault's DraftSight software (free by the way). Then I had an epiphany; I opened them in DraftSight and then removed the customer part file (a complex casting drawing made mostly of splines). Saved the file and what do you know, AutoCAD opened it up with no issue. Hmmm, I guess Autodesk could take a few pointers here and figure out how to open up dwg files better. I am back in business

Outlook 2010 Macro - Repeat Appointments And Change Category

I was getting annoyed with the inability of Outlook to make a recurring monthly bill that I could change the color of individual bills to mark as paid. I spent a little time and came up with a macro to do it. The first macro lets you make one year of appointments that occur on the same day each month. A second button lets you select an appointment (bill) and make it change its category. It is simple but a few others had the same question elsewhere. Enjoy.

Public Sub Create_OutlookRepeatingAppt()

Dim appt As Outlook.AppointmentItem
Dim sName As String
Dim sDay As String
Dim lYear As Long
Dim l As Long
Dim lMonth As Long
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
sName = InputBox("Input Name", "Input")
sDay = InputBox("Day of month", "Day of month")
lMonth = Month(Date)
lYear = Year(Date)

For l = 0 To 11

Set appt = Outlook.CreateItem(olAppointmentItem)
appt.Location = ""
appt.Subject = sName
appt.Body = ""
appt.Start = CDate(lMonth & "/" & sDay & "/" & lYear & " 12:00")
appt.End = CDate(lMonth & "/" & sDay & "/" & lYear & " 12:00")
'Appt.Label = "Personal"
appt.Categories = "PENDING" 'Create your own category for this
appt.Save
'Bump values if at end of year
Select Case lMonth
Case 12
lYear = lYear + 1
lMonth = 0
End Select
lMonth = lMonth + 1
Next l
Set appt = Nothing

End Sub

Public Sub Appointment_SetToPaid()
Dim appt
Set appt = Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection.Item(1)
appt.Categories = "PAID" 'Create your own category for this
appt.Save
Set appt = Nothing
End Sub

Cloning To Bigger Hard Drive

I was bumping my Windows 7 computers head against its hard drive space limit and I wanted to clone the install to a bigger drive. I did not want to spend anything so after a search I found Clonezilla fit the bill. I was not changing any hardware except for the bigger drive (going from 250 GB to 1.5 TB). Using Clonezilla Live .iso, I created the boot CD. I plugged in the new drive as a second drive and made sure I formatted it first (NTFS within my WIN 7 Drive Manager). Formatting was necessary so the cloning would recognize it as a viable drive. I followed the instructions here to the letter. Read carefully because at one point you will want to switch to Expert mode to toggle a switch on. Afterwords, I unplugged the old drive and plugged the SATA cable to the new drive, rebooted, and crossed my fingers. What do you know, Windows wanted to do a chkdsk and after that, booted to the new drive like nothing had changed. That wasn't so bad. I now have plenty of space and my old drive will serve as a backup. As things change, I will probably wipe that drive and give a shot at creating an image backup of the current drive (another option in Clonezilla).