A complete AutoCAD reference organised the way the work is actually done: set the drawing up, build geometry at 1:1, reuse it through blocks and external references, dimension and annotate it, then lay out the sheet and plot it.

The opening chapters cover what separates a CAD drawing from a picture, the DWG and DXF file formats and how to avoid drawings that will not open, the difference between the full edition and AutoCAD LT, licence types and the limits of the free student edition, installation and the first start. From there it moves through the interface, workspaces and the three ways to issue a command; drawing setup — units, limits, templates; the two-dimensional drawing commands; the modify commands and grips; object snaps and the drafting aids; and layers and object properties, including layer 0, the Defpoints layer, ByLayer versus ByBlock, dashed linetypes that plot continuous, lineweight against plotted width, and a standard layer system for building drawings.

Later chapters cover blocks, attributes and external references; text, tables and hatching, including Vietnamese text styles and fonts; dimensioning from DIMSTYLE through DIMSCALE versus annotative dimensions, associative dimensions and how to trace a wrong figure; three-dimensional modelling, from the three model types and the UCS through Boolean operations, visual styles, materials and rendering to extracting 2D views and measuring volume; and layouts, viewports, viewport scale, VP Freeze, annotative scale, title blocks with self-updating fields, batch plotting with PUBLISH, CTB and STB plot style tables, PDF export and ETRANSMIT.

The final chapter covers file management, drawing standards and troubleshooting: file extensions, .dwt templates, recovering an unsaved or damaged drawing, making a heavy file light again, layer naming conventions, sending a DWG out safely, and common AutoCAD faults. Appendices give the full command alias table, the Ctrl shortcut list and the system variables grouped by what they control.

Written bilingual Vietnamese–English side by side, so you can follow in your own language while still matching the exact English names AutoCAD prints on screen. Version 1.0, September 2026.