Most all my screen captures have been made for 12 years now using Techsmith’s Snagit program which is available on both the Windows PC and Mac platforms. I seriously use Snagit every day for something and would have a hard and painful time producing documents, presentations, and much more without it. A screen capture tells a thousand words and crosses language barriers.
In honor of my 12+ years of Snagit use, Techsmith’s Chief Evangelist Betsy Weber has graciously given me 12 licenses of the new Snagit release 10 to give away to my blog readers and Twitter followers ( I am @mrcadman) .
Curt Moreno the Kung Fu Drafter had two good suggestions as methods to give the licenses away.
1. A web scavenger hunt on CAD and Autodesk topics and trivia.
2. People reply as a comment to a blog post or a tweet comment from a Twitter follower of mine.
So here is the deal:
For Between the Lines blog readers:
Reply in a comment to this blog post. The first random selected 6 comments with a good AutoCAD tip, what release of AutoCAD they use, why they read the blog, how long they have been reading the blog, and any suggested blog topics they would like to see in the future, and how they will use their new Snagit, will get the licenses. Must comment by end of Tuesday June 8th PST.
For my Twitter followers (tweeps) : Tweet an AutoCAD Tip and say @mrcadman asked you to share it. Snagit 10 licenses will be given to the first 6 random selected tweets from tweeps I can direct reply to if they follow me. Must tweet by end of Tuesday June 8th PST.
Random selection will be accomplished by asking my cute, sweet, and unbiased 8 year old daughter. She will pick a number between 1 – and the number of submissions for each of the two series of six giveaway licenses. All decisions on giving the license is final and is also to be in compliance with any laws or export restrictions.
Cheers,
Shaan
Woot! Let’s see I’ve got 2008, 2010, and 2011 versions of Civil3D installed. I’ve been reading the blog for about as long as its been going. I think that was back around my first trip to AU. remember the Prairie Fire! I’ll be using Snag It for more in-house training sessions and handouts for my company. I wouldn’t mind seeing more Snag-It tips for blog posts. You do some on occasional which are great.
Shawn
Tip: VISRETAIN is the first system variable I memorized. It controls whether or not the changes to the appearance of an XREF are visible the next time you
Release: 2011
Reader: since… um, I can’t remember back that far.
Topics: anything dealing with drawing cleanup is appreciated.
Use for SnagIt: I’d use it for articles on my blog and for AUGI HotNews.
Tip: Use on/off state of layers and isolate/un-isolate/layon commands to view only layers that you are working on while you are working on them. Use freeze/thaw to control the permanent state of the layers in the drawing.
I use Civil 3D 2009-2011. I read your blog for several years because you have interesting stuff for us geeks. I’ll use SnagIt to communicate with others about Civil 3D.
Wendy
My AutoCAD tip…use Revit instead 😀 sorry guys! Love SnagIt though, have been using it for many years. I read your blog to keep up with industry news and for the rare time I have to support AutoCAD
Autocad ’11 here. I’ve been reading the blog for a few years now because it seems to be the fastest way to stay current in the cad world. Snagit would be used mostly for training purposes, though some personal fun stuff may also happen. A good Autocad tip: run an Audit from time to time on larger drawings – especially ones where stuff is inserted from vendors!
No offense but are you sure it wasn’t FILEDIA set to 1? That used to randomly revert to 0, without warning and for no reason. 🙂
I’ve been reading your blog for several years now and have gotten some great tips from it and lots of news about Autodesk’s latest software releases.
My tip is one I have recently discovered; if you have a custom CUI, and it’s on a server, make sure that the path to it is at the top of the support folders in PREFERENCES. When trying to explain this problem with others in our industry, Snagit would have been way easier to use that taking screenshots, croping them and then emailing.
Keep up the awesome work Shaan.
I’ve been reading your blog since at least 2003 and using AutoCAD since r12. I’ve been using snagit since r5? Or r6? Don’t know what I would do without it either.
Ever need to avoid retyping a long command name in AutoCAD after using other commands and that has no equivilant keyboard shortcut? Click on the command line and use the arrow keys to browse through recently entered commands.
I’m using C3D09 at the moment and hopefully we’ll be migrating to 2011 in the near future.
I read BTL to get an insider’s behind-the-scenes look at Autodesk. Plus for the little tips that make our lives easier + always enjoy the photography posts.
Haven’t been reading from the get-go, but not far off it.
More geek/tech stuff! Plus a random visualisation post or two would be great.
As mentioned above, I would use Snagit to help with documentation/training our staff for 2011’s new features and how we will slot it into our current workflow.
TIP: if you want your drawing to be stable when you’re using grading objects, try and avoid Elevation Points like the plague. And audit, audit, audit!
I have been reading this blog since late 2008, I am using AutoCAD release 2010, I read the blog to stay up to date on Autodesk, Industry news, and time saving-tips. My AutoCAD tip is to frequently check your model in NavisWorks. It is a great review tool for looking at your drawing in 3D, and seeing it in context of other models (even non-autocad models).
My suggestion for a blog post is how to use AutoCAD to measure specific points in models so you know what transforms to apply in NavisWorks.
I have been reading your blog for about 3 years now. I like the drawing cleanup and organizational stuff. I am using ACAD 2009-2011 and REVIT 2010-2011.
I would use Snagit for training in house and to put stuff on my own AutoCAD/Revit blog.
My tip would be to adopt the Sheet Set Manager and use it for all of your projects. It helps tremendously with drawing organization and management. It has changed the way our office manages projects.
Hey Shaan,
I have been reading and posing on your blog (and many other Autodesk blogs globally) for many years. We met up at AU last year where i was a first time attendie/presenter.
I partisipate in the Beta testing of the products and as a result I have successfully migrated my Australian offices from 2010 to 2011 a month ago.
My top tips in AutoCAD are:
Command: Align – streching, rotating, moving align one simple command.
System Variable: Pickfirst – resets the pick order when it changes without warning. (Filedia, is also a personal fav, but was already taken).
Ribbons: I love them, and cat work with the pull downs any more..
Cheers
TMG..
TIP: Verify your SAVETIME variable anytime you upgrade or perform major changes to AutoCAD.
Rel: Civil 3D 2011
Why: because Shaan has the best seat in the house. He is always on top of things.
How Many: oooh, man, seems like more than 2 yrs…gotta be more.
New topics: It’s a grea blog. I think a montly snooping about the community. No dirt or anything, but some ‘What is the CadGeek doing these days’ kind of stuff, with something fairly useful from his site. I did say FAIRLY useful. 😉
SnagIt: Umm, is there something you DONT use it for? 90% Journalism, then it filters down to 1% after I begin to sleep. (Occasionally I twitch and accidentally snapshot things while face down on keyboard)
TIP: Check yuur SAVETIME System variable any time you perform an upgrade or patch to AutoCAD. Often it gets reset to 0.
Rel: Civil 3D 2011
Why: Shaan has the best seat in the house, so he always has a good read.
How Long: How long you been doin this?
Topic: Techsmith, 3DConnexion, Autodesk, AU, United Airlines (that goes with the AU) Giveaways
Snagit: umm, is there something you DON’T use it for?
Journalism 80%, and filtering down to Sleep 1% (once in awhile I’ll trigger the capture with my nose as I pass out on the keyboard)
Thanks Shaan. You gave me a copy of Snagit and Camtasia years ago and I’ve gotten tons of use from it. From capturing bugs to making instructional videos that were posted on Youtube.
CAD is my way of life. “Civil3Dave” Have been using Cad from 1986, full time from 2000. Im now a Cad Manager/ Civil Designer and any help I can get make my user’s better that way I read blog “Between the Lines”, “BIM on th Roacks” “Civil 3D Rocks”, “the Crazy World of Civil 3D”, “The Dave and Dan Civil 3D Show”, “Digging into Civil 3D”, “Heidhewett.blogs”.
One of the best things I have found is “superPurge” http://www.manusoft.com/software/superpurge.html
Shaan,
I will suggest a tip which can benifit almost all users. The command letter+tab key to see what commands are available (like auto suggest).
e.g. I want to know VISRETAIN, so type VIS+TAB until it comes up.
Simple & easy.
Tip: Customize your tool palettes so they works for you. I have done this and have all the blocks I use on a regular basis all in one place. This saves me a ton of time! (I am new to AutoCad so these things are exciting for me!)
Release: AutoCad Map 3D 2010
Reader: less than a year
Topics: Setting up a drawing so different objects show up at different scales. Not sure what this would be called?
Use for SnagIt:I would like to use it as a training tool.
Tip: Set ATTDIA = 1 so you get the attribute dialog. It still defaults to zero in AutoCAD 2011
Release: MEP 2011
Reader: Wow, can’t remember that far back
Topics: AutoCAD customization
Use for SnagIt: World domination through the percise use of sceen captures.
MTJIGSTRING to change the default preview when creating MTEXT… “abc” seems so boring! Even better is to change your co-workers to something that lets them know that you rock!
Closing my Snagit giveaway. Will be announcing winners soon. Calling to get the random numbers for winners from my 8 year old daughter.
Thank you for all the great comments and tips!
Huge thanks also go to my friends at Techsmith.
Cheers,
Shaan
#2
You won a license in the random drawing by my daughter. Please email me at shaan@autodesk.com to claim the license of Snagit 10.
Thank you for reading the blog and the tip.
#7
You won a license in the random drawing by my daughter. Please email me at shaan@autodesk.com to claim the license of Snagit 10.
Thank you for reading the blog and the tip.
#10
You won a license in the random drawing by my daughter. Please email me at shaan@autodesk.com to claim the license of Snagit 10.
Thank you for reading the blog and the tip.
#12
You won a license in the random drawing by my daughter. Please email me at shaan@autodesk.com to claim the license of Snagit 10.
Thank you for reading the blog and the tip.
#15
You won a license in the random drawing by my daughter. Please email me at shaan@autodesk.com to claim the license of Snagit 10.
Thank you for reading the blog and the tip.
#17
You won a license in the random drawing by my daughter. Please email me at shaan@autodesk.com to claim the license of Snagit 10.
Thank you for reading the blog and the tip.
Gerbil,
lol, FILEDIA was probably the 3rd sysvar I learned, that one surely baffled me, but, luckily I found help from a more experienced user on the AUGI guilds or forums. 🙂
(as a matter of trivia, MBUTTONPAN was the 2nd one I learned)
~Melanie
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