Another alternative is Bentley Microstation. In my opinion AutoCAD is far superior (functionality, user interface) to MS, but MS may be cheaper to license? Someone on here might know about that.
However, the final product on actual sheet drawings can look exactly the same.

Reference files are your friend!!! Learn and use them! One thing our drafters ALWAYS hark on client or subcontract files submitted for our use are how they are referenced. Say you have an underground utility file and a site layout file, for example. Instead of one huge file, you can break it down into project specific files. This way you can work on utilities without the fear of screwing up the site layout file. Added bonus is that file sizes aren't as large and load/save faster.

Here is an example of our civil site layout drawings and attached reference files. Note that no actual drafting takes place when putting together a sheet, this is all done in the appropriate file.

Drawing C-300
Reference Files:
Border file (use this for ALL produced drawings, for uniformity)
Existing Survey file
New Site file

This also reminds me of when it comes to putting dimensions and text on the drawing. Producing a sheet drawing relies on model space and paper space. Model space is the reference file graphics. Paper space is where you put dimension and text on individual drawings. This way you can reference your files on other sheets, say C-301, without showing text that is unique to C-300 and unecessary on C-301.

Any questions? Basically learn in this order layers, paper/model space, reference files and you should be gravy. I don't claim to be an expert on AutoCAD, but if you have any questions feel free to PM me and maybe I can get you headed in the right direction. If anything I can buzz my CAD guys ears. Good luck!

 

Autocad LT (light) may be all you need. It's a lot cheaper than the full program.

http://www.autodesk.com/acadlt

 

thanks for the link! now i just need to figure out how to make it work.

 

well i found the autocad LT 2007 student portfolio for like $150, but it says about it saying student version, will that be like on the bottom on the page or accross the center of the page when i print it? thanks!

 

It was not across the bottom or across the middle of the page when I had the student version. That was R12 and 10+ years ago.

 

We just picked up 07 LT for about $750 a few weeks ago. I don't use AutoCAD much anymore (I do very little 2D anymore), but enough to know little has changed over the years. You might be able to find an older release laying around somewhere...

 

hahahahaa you probably had a tablet connected too!
I learned on 2000. ran 2004 for a good amount of time, then went to desktop 06-then my laptop self destructed, and as of two days ago Im running autoCad 2007- seems pretty stable other than the fact i had to re-work all of my lsp's to work in the cui

 

community college, 1 coarse in basis autocad, get work to pay for it.

i could draw that easily with corel draw, or design cad (very similar to autocad)
http://www.imsisoft.com/faminfo.asp?fam=2

 

In my own opinion, you cannot sell your Autocad Software unless you sell your business. Check the License Agreement it was stated there that the License is Non Transferrable. Unless, you will take the risk of using a Software not specifically licensed to you.

I just reviewed that 2007 LT has now a capability opf 3D. How unfortunate Am I, I just got my 2006 LT last year and it was limited to 2D Drawings only.

 

I haven't used Autocad since 1992!

It's relatively cheap compared to a lot of the other CAD packages out there and like trying to build a truck from tinker toys for most of today's manufacturing applications.

Last time I looked, there were a lot of programs out there that were somewhat automated for doing architectural type stuff that may be better suited than Autocad.

 

They don't even support those older versions. I personally wouldn't worry about it, but that's just me...

BTW, AutoCAD has had so called 3D capabilities for quite a while, but you're not missing a thing... I wouldn't use it for anything... I don't even care for Inventor which is so much better...

 

They had just added some crude 3d capabilities to it when I quit using it.

I can't remember if that was release 10 or 11.

The 3d side of it was pretty awful back then.

 

I had to take a semester class on autocad and picked it up pretty quick. Even have a how to book still in the wrapper that I ended up not using and the bookstore wouldn't take back. I'll sell it to ya half price 30bucks if ya want.

Adrianspeeder

 

My company uses Auto Sketch it is made by the same people who make Auto Cad. It is a good easy to use program and is only a couple hundred bucks or so.