A guide to help a new admin?

[Jordan Truesdell]

I almost posted this in the Manual Request thread, but I'm not really looking for a manual - I need a help book..

You see, I'm a former acad user (pre-R12) who used to do aerospace engineering work. I can't claim I really knew autocad well, as I trained on CadKey originally, but I could get around reasonably well. I was away from acad for several years to do 3d work (SolidEdge, ProE).

I just spent several years being spoonfed on 2000i while learning the standards of a new industry (Structural - the A/E/C flavor). Now I've got my own shop, no drafter/administrator, AutoCAD 2002, and not a clue how to set it up to work the way I'm used to. I've got all my favorite routines and menus and such I used at my former workplace and I'm sure its a simple matter to re-integrate them into my new installation, but I'm just about dead lost.

Is there a manual that will walk a greenhorn administrator through setting up ACAD properly with existing "stuff". I don't need to know how to draw lines, or circles, or set my osnaps. I need to know how to define/redefine dimstyles, create custom menus, add lisp routines - all the stuff that was done by my administrator for me. So far, all the books I've read are of the "I've never seen a CAD package, how do I draw lines" version, or "Setting up 2005 GeeWhizBang version: To migrate your menus, type "888x##-13_4", then set up your paths like you did for the last version!" At least half of the books appear to be command references, quite useful if you happen to know all the text commads by heart but quite useless for a user who really only knows the graphical front end.

Any suggestions for a self-start package for administrators?

*edit*
I'm going to add/modify the request...how about a book on the internals of autocad, written for the beginning sysadmin? I'm not afraid of programming or ugly details. Something like Custiomization sections of "inside AutoCAD 2002" by Harrington, Burchard, & Pitzer, but as a single comprehensive tutorial-ish reference? HB&P devotes about 125 pages to setup and customization, but it's really just slipped in to make the book seem complete, rather than treating the subject well.

[jpaulsen]

There may be other books on the market but I've always found the AutoCAD Customization guide from Autodesk to be helpful.

The following topics are discussed in the manual:

• PGP file
• Linetypes
• Hatch Patterns
• Shapes and fonts
• Menus
• Templates
• Programming

Your Autodesk dealer should be able to get you a copy of it.