Working with dimensions

Dimensions are probably the most important kind of annotation you will add to your drawing. Using dimensions, you can specify the actual size of features and their specifications that can be later used for manufacturing or construction. There are lots of dimension tools available in AutoCAD, which makes adding dimensions a breeze, and we will look at most of these tools. The Dimension tools are in the Annotation panel of the Home tab and in the Dimension panel of the Annotate tab, as shown in the following screenshot. For our example, we will mostly use dimension tools from the Annotation panel of the Home tab:

Figure 6.45: Dimension tools

The preceding screenshot shows the Dimension tools in the Annotation panel of the Home tab and the Dimensions panel of the Annotate tab.

Just like text, the properties of dimensions are also defined by their style, which is called the dimension style. We will start by making our own dimension style...