Over the years I've worked with many of AutoCAD's releases, and every year, it gets a little better. Autodesk never fails to reward me with some new feature to get excited about. This year it was annotative dimensioning. If you are a user of paperspace in AutoCAD 2008, and you don't know what annotative dimensioning is, do yourself a favor and look it up in the "Help" database.

My advice to old users upgrading to new software is, learn your new features. Most of the time these are great timesavers, and usually they are completely overlooked. New releases come with a "New Features Tutorial". I recommend you go through it; it's worth that hour of your time.

Even with all of the great features, AutoCAD's greatest asset is its versatility. Everyone who uses AutoCAD uses it a little differently. There are so many different ways to draw and present your work, it's astounding. No two companies do their work the same way. For instance, one thing I've been hoping for is the ability to transfer Named Viewports from one drawing to another (currently it's a drawing based setting, with no way to export it). But if that feature was presented next year, how many people would use it? How many features are in version 2008 that I find useless, but other users find invaluable? That's the true beauty of AutoCAD, versatility. And it's the one thing that will guarantee the king stays on his hill.

Learn more about this author, Chris Wade.
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