The Edittime Express Tool is a simple way to track time spent editing a drawing. You can turn the timer on and off to accommodate trips to the coffee machine, and a timeout option stops the timing after a specified period of inactivity. To use this tool, make sure the Express Tools are loaded and type Edittime at the command prompt. AutoCAD displays the current settings and activity time. It also prompts you to:

Enter an option [Reset/Timeout/ON/OFF]:

Reset returns the timer to zero. If the timer is on, timing automatically starts. Timeout sets the amount of inactivity allowed before the timer automatically suspends timing. On starts the timer, and Off stops it.

When you think perpendicular, you think lines, but AutoCAD’s perpendicular object snap works on other objects. You can draw a line perpendicular to an arc or circle. In this case, the straight line is perpendicular to the circle or arc at the point where it meets the circle or arc.

Caption: Start the Line command, and when prompted for the first point, type in Perp. At the To prompt, select the circle. The line will be perpendicular to the circle.

You can also draw a line that is perpendicular to two arcs or two circles, or between a line and an arc or circle.

Caption: Type Perp at both point prompts to draw a line that is perpendicular to two circles (or two arcs, or an arc and a circle . . . )

But wait, there’s more! You can use the perpendicular object snap when you’re not drawing a line. You can use it almost any time AutoCAD asks you to select a point—for example, in commands such as Move, Stretch, Mirror, and Copy.

The Purge command can mess with your multileader styles in AutoCAD 2008. If you have the Purge Nested Items check box selected when you run Purge, it will purge the standard multileader style. And with no standard style, you can’t create new multiline styles. If this happens to you, save and close the drawing, then reopen it. The standard multileader style will be created automatically.

AutoCAD creates rectangular arrays and polar arrays. But what if you want an array of a different kind? It’s easiest to create a rectangular array, then delete array items as needed to get the shape you want.

Just as with dimensions, you can create styles for mleaders, which were introduced in AutoCAD 2008. And like dimension styles, named mleader styles are saved with the drawing, so you can store predefined styles in your drawing template.

The Mleaderstyle command brings up the Multileader Style Manager dialog box, which closely resembles the Dimension Styles dialog box. Available styles are listed in the left-hand panel (the list box lets you display all styles or only those styles used in the drawing), and the current style is previewed in the center panel. Down the right-hand side are buttons that create, modify, and delete multileaders. Note that you can’t delete a style that is being used in the drawing.

Caption: The Multileader  Style Manager.

Click on the New button to create a new style. You enter a name for the style. In the Start With box, you can select an existing multileader style whose settings become the default for your new style. Also specify whether the multileader object is annotative (annotative objects are also new in AutoCAD 2008—their sizes and proportions adjust automatically to suit the drawing scale).

The next step is the same as modifying a multileader object. The Modify Multileader dialog box has three tabs where you can specify settings for multileader options. On the Leader Format tab, you can set the type of leader line (straight leader, spline, no leader line), color, linetype, lineweight, arrowhead symbol and size, and the break size to be used with the Dimbreak command.

Caption: Leader Format tab options.

The second tab is the Leader Structure tab. Here you specify constraints such as maximum leader line points, the angle of the first point in the leader line (first segment angle), and the angle of the second point (second segment angle). You can also control landing settings and set multileader scaling. If you don’t make the multileader annotative, you can select Scale Multileaders to Layout to have AutoCAD determine a scaling factor based on the scaling in model space and paper space viewports.

Caption: Leader Structure tab options.

On the Content tab, you can set multileader type to either text or a block (you can also choose none). When you select mtext, you can then specify default text (press the … button to access the Mtext Editor), a text style, angle, color, and height. Other options include always left justifying the multileader text and framing the multileader text with a box. Leader connection controls let you specify the distance between the landing line and the text (landing gap) as well as the attachment of the landing line to the text.

Caption: Content tab options when you select Mtext as multileader type.

If you specify that the multileader contains a block, you need to set a source block. You can select your own block or one of the predefined blocks that appear in the source block pull-down list. Next, choose the method of attachment: extents, insertion point, or center point. The default color setting is Byblock. Any color set here takes effect only when the object color of the block is set to Byblock.