Expand Your Crosshairs (Cursor)

by Donnie Gladfelter on January 24, 2007

in AutoCAD,AutoCAD 2006,AutoCAD 2007,AutoCAD 2008

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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  • Magz

    Hi im magz just want to check if its possible to set my my custom cursor pointer in autocad. HOW? because i see some videos from youtube that some users have this blinking circle as their cursor pointer i really want to ma ke the same so i made my custom cursor pointer which blinks with the yellow color but i dont know how to apply it on my autocad.

    • http://thecadgeek.com/ Donnie Gladfelter

      Hi Magz -

      I believe what you’re talking about is something that many popular screencasting products (like Camtasia Studio) add to recordings to bring attention to the cursor. This is not something you would see on the screen, as it’s only added in post-production of videos.

      Thanks,

      Donnie

      • Magnolouis

        Hey thanks for this, hahaha… its been a long time now I almost got this cursor thing I made my own but whenever I try working inside the Acad platform it still goes back to defaults cursor. And I have a good use with tthis camtasia, recording my 3D animation walkthroughs from Navisworks. 

        Thanks…

        Magz 

  • Penny

    OMG THANK YOU! My work computer got formatted and i had to re-load AutoCAD. So i lost all my original settings…including my 100% crosshairs. Took me forever to find this just to change them back from 5%. Thanks again ?

  • ganesh

    Hi Dear

    This G$$anesh from Bangalore, INDIA

    Kindly let me know the crosshair setting (pointer).
    As a i working on autocad 2007 version. the pointer is not detecting the nearest object, tracing out the nearest line parellel or diagonal to the same.

    mainly i want the pointer to display the nearest object

  • ganesh

    Hi Dear

    This G$$anesh from Bangalore, INDIA

    Kindly let me know the crosshair setting (pointer).
    As a i working on autocad 2007 version. the pointer is not detecting the nearest object, tracing out the nearest line parellel or diagonal to the same.

    mainly i want the pointer to display the nearest object

  • http://www.thecadgeek.com Donnie Gladfelter

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

  • http://thecadgeek.com/ Donnie Gladfelter

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

  • Gary Garnier

    Did you ever figure out how to do this?

  • Gary Garnier

    Did you ever figure out how to do this?

  • Californian

    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.

  • Californian

    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.

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