Expand Your Crosshairs (Cursor)

Once upon a time in AutoCAD the cursor (crosshairs) filled the entire drawing area by default.  This mimicked an old t-square or drafting machine in functionality.  There were many advantages of having your cursor span the entire screen, one of course being the ability to quickly check if two items were in line with each other.

Since AutoCAD Release 14, AutoCAD has shipped with the cursor spanning only 5% of the drawing area.  The size of AutoCAD’s cursor is controlled by a system variable introduced in, you guessed it, AutoCAD Release 14.  Typing CURSORSIZE at the command line will allow a user to specify a new size for their cursor.  This variable is specified in percent, meaning the default value of 5 will make the cursor span only 5% of the drawing area.  Consequently, setting the CURSORSIZE system variable to 100 will make the cursor span the entire drawing area – 100%.

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About the Author

Donnie Gladfelter

AUGIWorld columnist, Donnie Gladfelter is jointly responsible for the technical support and training provided to the CAD staff of Timmons Group where he serves in the role of Design Systems Specialist.

3 Responses to “Expand Your Crosshairs (Cursor)”

  1. I have always loved how useful the crosshairs cursor in AutoCAD is, and I was just wondering if you knew of any way to get this for my entire computer.

  2. Did you ever figure out how to do this?

  3. There may be a 3rd party app somewhere that will allow for this. But using native Windows, I do not know of a way.

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