AutoCAD 2012: “Where is My Match Properties Button!?” or “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Ribbon”

One Man Alone Cannot Fight the Future

In an apparent effort to justify their subscription service and annual product release, it seems that Autodesk (~$2.04b 2011 gross profit) has forgone innovation in productivity in favor of forcing users to use “the ribbon”,  Microsoft’s user interface equivalent of “hide the ball”.

2011’s version of AutoCAD offered an easy button to revert to the “classic” user interface. This year, after spending several hours waiting for our 2012 updates to install, I was shocked to see “the ribbon” as our only real out of the box option. Coming at an exceptionally busy time in our schedule I chose to use the 2011 version of the software for several months. Once things slowed down a bit and I got re-acquainted with my family I chose to “drink the ribbon Kool-Aid” and embrace this bit of new tech.

In my opinion, Match Properties has been one of the most useful tools for quickly created new drawings or modifying existing drawings. So it was to my dismay that my handy new “ribbon” does not contain Match Properties…or at least an obvious path to it. It is my humble opinion that if you have to click more than 2 times to find a button…it’s hidden. Yes, there are neat hacker ways to get AutoCAD to look or do most anything you want, but most of us have billable work to get done.

So, as a work around to this problem I suggest using the keyboard entry “MA”. Not quite as productive, but it will do.

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3 thoughts on “AutoCAD 2012: “Where is My Match Properties Button!?” or “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Ribbon””

  1. The keyboard will always be faster.
    I hate the ribbon. I keep searching for the
    little icons. It makes my eyes and my hand sored.

  2. I think that if you are a real autocad user..
    most of your input … is by keyboard ..
    by way the fasted way and it relax the mouse hand …

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