Are you an AutoCAD EXPERT

If you had to rank your CAD skills on a scale of 1-5 where would you rank yourself?

Packed away in AutoCAD is a little-known system variable that will allow users to change the way AutoCAD interacts with you based on your EXPERTise.

For example when you invoke the REGEN command, are you REALLY sure you want to? Those familiar with the REGEN command know that AutoCAD will prompt the user “About to regen, proceed?” when the command in invoked. Using the EXPERT variable one can have that prompt suppressed. But that’s just an EXPERT level of 1.

The EXPERT command can be set to any value 0-5. Each value will of course make AutoCAD perform a little different from another setting. Below is an excerpt from the AutoCAD help file outlining what each value of the EXPERT command does.

• 0 Issues all prompts normally.
• 1 Suppresses “About to regen, proceed?” and “Really want to turn the current layer off?”
• 2 Suppresses the preceding prompts and “Block already defined. Redefine it?” (BLOCK) and “A drawing with this name already exists. Overwrite it?” (SAVE or WBLOCK).
• 3 Suppresses the preceding prompts and those issued by the LINETYPE command if you try to load a linetype that’s already loaded or create a new linetype in a file that already defines that linetype.
• 4 Suppresses the preceding prompts and those issued by UCS Save and VPORTS Save if the name you supply already exists.
• 5 Suppresses the prompt, “That name is already in Use, redefine it?” issued by the -DIMSTYLE Save option when you supply the name of an existing dimension style.

When a prompt is suppressed by EXPERT, the operation in question is performed as though you entered y at the prompt. Setting EXPERT can affect scripts, menu macros, AutoLISP, and the command functions.