Text, dimensions, and hatching have long been important clarifying elements in drafting. In AutoCAD, these elements are flexible almost to a fault, and you can edit and update them quickly as you change the geometry beneath them. The text, dimension, and hatching annotations that you add "speak" about the geometry so that others can understand exactly what, how big, and how far.

After you've made some drawings that talk, you'll probably send the message around by printing — or as CAD users call it, plotting — them. Chapter 16 is your guidebook to navigating the plot process, understanding how the legacy of AutoCAD plotting influences current practice, and most of all, getting a good-looking, properly scaled plot onto paper.