With every release of AutoCAD comes new features, commands and system variables. Many of these are well documented. At the same time, other commands that have long been in use that are forgotten or dropped from documentation, but still functional in the software. Here is a short listing of some of my favorite obscure commands.

MULTIPLE
When entered preceeding another command, will repeat the command until you cancel out of it.

CIRCULAR ARRAY
At the command line enter -array, pick the object(s), and when you are presented with the Rectangular or Polar options, enter C for Circular instead.

TCIRCLE
creates a circle, slot or rectangular object around selected text, mtext or attdef entities.

CHSPACE
changes objects from model space to paper space and vice versa.

XLINE
use it to create a never-ending construction line in both directions.

RAY
use it to create a never-ending construction line in one direction.

TFRAMES
toggles wipeout frame visibility.

WHOHAS
when you try to open a file that is already in-use, this command will tell you who is using it (this is a default trigger in version 2007 and up).

PEDITACCEPT
set this to “1″, and it won’t ask you “do you want to convert this line to a pline”. It just does it automatically.

WP or CP (selection)
when used with a command that prompts you for a selection, this will let you use a polygon window/crossing instead of a rectangular one.

._DBLIST
lists all entities in the drawing.

MOCORO
move, copy, rotate in one command and from the same basepoint.

‘(command)
run another command transparently inside of the original command.

Credit and thanks for not only the idea for this thread, but also for many of the included commands, goes out to the guys and gals on the AUGI forums, specifically this thread.

Have an obscure command that you want to share? Use the comment form to post it up.