AutoCAD Platform Customization: VBA

Welcome to AutoCAD Platform Customization: VBA! Have you ever thought to yourself, why doesn’t the Autodesk® AutoCAD® program include every feature I need? Why isn’t it streamlined for the type of work I perform? If so, you are not alone. AutoCAD at its core is a drafting platform that, through programming, can be shaped and molded to more effi ciently complete the tasks you perform on a daily basis and enhance your company’s workfl ows. Take a deep breath. I did just mention programming, but programming isn’t something to fear. At fi rst, just the idea of programming makes many people want to run in the opposite direction—myself included. The productivity gains are what propelled me forward. Programming isn’t all that different from anything else you’ve tried doing for the fi rst time.

In many ways, learning to program is much like learning a foreign language. For many new to Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), the starting place is learning the basics: the syntax of the programming language and how to leverage commands and system variables. Executing commands and working with system variables using the SendCommand and PostCommand methods can be a quick way to get started and become comfortable with VBA. After you are comfortable with the syntax of VBA and the SendCommand and PostCommand functions, you can begin to learn how to access the AutoCAD Object library to develop more complex and robust programs.

About This Book

AutoCAD Platform Customization: VBA provides you with an understanding of the VBA programming language and how it can be used in combination with the AutoCAD Object
library to improve your productivity. This book is designed to be more than just an introduction to VBA and the AutoCAD Object library; it is a resource that can be used time and again when developing VBA programs for use with AutoCAD. As you page through this book, you will notice that it contains sample code and exercises that are based on real-world solutions.

This book is the third and fi nal book in a series that focuses on customizing and programming AutoCAD. The three-book series as a whole is known as AutoCAD Platform
Customization: User Interface, AutoLISP, VBA, and Beyond, which will be available as a printed book in 2015.

Book 1 in the series, AutoCAD Platform Customization: User Interface and Beyond, was published in early 2014 and focused on CAD standards and general customization of AutoCAD;

Book 2, AutoCAD Platform Customization: AutoLISP, was published in mid-2014 and covers the AutoLISP programming language.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Understanding the AutoCAD VBA Environment
Chapter 2 Understanding Visual Basic for Applications
Chapter 3 Interacting with the Application and Documents Objects
Chapter 4 Creating and Modifying Drawing Objects
Chapter 5 Interacting with the User and Controlling the Current View
Chapter 6 Annotating Objects
Chapter 7 Working with Blocks and External References
Chapter 8 Outputting Drawings
Chapter 9 Storing and Retrieving Custom Data
Chapter 10 Modifying the Application and Working with Events
Chapter 11 Creating and Displaying User Forms
Chapter 12 Communicating with Other Applications
Chapter 13 Handling Errors and Deploying VBA Projects