Selecting Options from a Shortcut Menu

Selecting Options from a Shortcut Menu
Now you know that you can select command options by typing them. You can also right-click at
any time during a command to open a shortcut menu containing those same options. For example,
in step 2 in the previous exercise, you typed C↵ to tell AutoCAD that you wanted to select the center
of the arc. Instead of typing, you can also right-click the mouse to open a menu of options applicable
to the Arc command at that time.





Notice that in addition to the options shown in the Command prompt, the shortcut menu also
shows you a few more options: Enter, Cancel, Pan, and Zoom. The Enter option is the same as
pressing ↵. Cancel cancels the current command. Pan and Zoom let you adjust your view as you’re
working through the current command.
The shortcut menu is context sensitive, so you see only those options that pertain to the command
or activity that is currently in progress. Also, when AutoCAD is expecting a point, an object
selection, or a numeric value, right-clicking doesn’t display a shortcut menu. Instead, AutoCAD
treats a right-click as ↵.
The location of your cursor when you right-click determines the contents of the shortcut list.
You’ve already seen that you can right-click a toolbar to get a list of other toolbars. A right-click in
the Command window displays a list of operations you can apply to the command line, such as
repeating one of the last several commands you’ve used or copying the most recent history of command
activity to the Clipboard.



A right-click in the drawing area when no command is active displays a set of basic options for
editing your file, such as Cut, Paste, Undo, Repeat the last command, Pan, and Zoom, to name a few.



If you’re ever in doubt about what to do in AutoCAD, you can right-click to see a list of options.
You’ll learn more about these options later in this book. For now, let’s move on to the topic of selecting
objects.