All of us here at Tuesday Tips Headquarters love getting feedback from our readers. It may take the form of expanding on a tip or maybe explaining how they utilize it at their job. Of course, we get plenty of suggestions for tips (lots of great ideas have made their way into the blog.)
We also get a lot of readers looking for a solution to a particular problem they’re having. Much like Santa at the North Pole, we try to answer as many as we can, but there’s just not enough time. So, occasionally, we like to open up the old mailbag and pick out a few that deserve attention but may not warrant an entire blog post. We like to call it AutoCAD Potpourri because you never know just what you’ll get.
Create Viewports From Insert View Tool
Murray from Minneapolis writes:
I have a co-worker who’s driving me crazy by forgetting to set their newly created Layout Viewports as being locked. Is there an automated lisp routine or something to help me with this? I don’t know how many times the zoom or scale has been messed up because of this.
Hi Murray, instead of that, how about you just make an easy change in your workflow? From the blue contextual Layout ribbon tab, you’ll find an Insert View tool in the Layer Viewports panel. This will let you insert any named view as a viewport. You don’t even have to use named views to use it. If you don’t have any views, it will go directly into New View mode, where you can select an area of your model. When you’re satisfied with the selection, hit enter, and you’ll return to your layout, where you can now drop in the viewport.
AutoCAD will do its best to scale it correctly for you, but you can always change it. And, best of all, it will automatically be locked after you insert it using this method. Viola! Problem solved.
Utilize Activity Insights
Emily from Chicago asks us:
Is there an easy way to know who did what in our drawings? In particular, who was working on it, who saved it, and who managed the Xrefs in it?
Emily – you didn’t mention what version of AutoCAD you are using, but if you’re on 2024.1 or higher, you sound like a perfect fit for the new Activity Insights palette. You’ll find it in the View tab of the ribbon. It’s the only icon in the History panel. Turn it on, and you’ll get a palette view of various activities, telling you who did what and when they did it. Click on any entry to get more info on it. Just follow this link to learn more about it.
Use Paste Special to Insert Image Files
Louie from New York wants to know:
We don’t use externally referenced drawing files in our work, but we do insert numerous images into our drawings. Of course, this references the image, which, in turn, creates problems for our users who aren’t used to working with the image paths. In other words, the path is often broken. Is there a way to attach an image so that it’s not externally referenced (thus pathed?)
Louie, in a word, yes! It’s a simple three-step process. First, open the image file in MS Paint® or pretty much any graphic software. Next, select “all” and perform a clipboard copy. Finally, in AutoCAD, do a “paste special” (not a regular paste) to place the image directly into your drawing. Baddabing! No more lost image files.
Reset Overridden Dimension Strings
Bailey from Cincinnati asks:
Let me start by saying that I work with that co-worker. The lazy drafter who prefers to override dimension text instead of just doing it right to begin with. Of course, there’s no way to know if it’s been overridden or not (I wish they would get flagged similar to Anno Monitor). Do you have any suggestions for me?
Yes, Bailey, I do! There’s an Express Tool called DIMREASSOC. You can type it into either the Dynamic Input Box or the Command Line. You can also find it as “Reset Text” in the Dimension panel of the Express Tools tab in the ribbon. To use it, select an area of dimensions or just type in ALL since the command filters out anything that’s not a dimension.
Any dimensions that have overridden text will immediately be highlighted for you. Just hit Enter to end object selection, and Boom! All the overridden dimensions now read accurately.
How’s that for an easy fix? I just wish we could do the same with your co-worker!
Coming Clean
If you were paying close attention, you may have noticed a pattern in our questions. They were all from fictional characters in classic TV sitcoms.
That’s right, there’s no actual mailbag full of letters that we pulled from. That’s shocking here in 2025, I know. But we do hear from a lot of you via emails or comments, so we also have plenty of shorter tips to share, so this is always a fun way to get them out there.
I hope to do another AutoCAD Potpourri post someday, so please make sure you keep those letters and questions coming!
Celebrity Guest Stars:
Murray Slaughter – The Mary Tyler Moore Show
Emily Hartley – The Bob Newhart Show
Louie De Palma – Taxi
Bailey Quarters – WKRP in Cincinnati
More Tuesday Tips
Check out our whole Tuesday Tips series for ideas on how to make AutoCAD work for you.
