Recently our previous blog service (Typepad) ended their business – so, we have a new home. It will take a bit to get images back and displaying properly, but we are working on it! Final pageview count of original blog: 387,232

An easy to view list of all H-Factor topics can be found on our index page at H-Factor Index For technical questions, please email support@hydracad.com

If you have a drawing with paragraphs of text all written in individual lines, you may find it troublesome to change the fonts, size of text, add formatting, or, heavens forbid, adjust the room the paragraph takes up. These individual lines are composed of old-school text tools like Dynamic Text (DTEXT), or regular text (TEXT). Multiline text…

If you've run into the problem where after returning your drawing from 3D to 2D you notice some sidewalls are being flipped, we can explain. This is a result of how AutoCAD handles mirrored blocks.  In the the image below, the two sidewalls on the left side have been inserted using HydraCAD's sprinkler insertion tools.…

This is a republishing of an earlier post because this is a really helpful tool when you just can't calc a system. Sometimes when you AutoCalc only some of your pipes actually make it to HydraCALC, or you get an error that prevents you from loading the job into HydraCALC. Both of these can be…

We got a comment from a customer that he would like to turn off our default Object Snaps temporarily when using certain HydraCAD tools. There is an easy way to do this – AutoCAD has Temporary Overrides built in; these are stored in the CUI file. Overrides differ from toggles (F3 for OSNAP, F8 for…

Many of you know how to specify a sloping pipe. You simply use the Define Sloping Pipe command on the Pipe Elevation flyout of the Piping toolbar. You enter the Rise and Run and then pick the appropriate ends of the pipe depending on how you answered the Low End/High End question. But what is…

In 2010, xref'd layers are shown faded by default. According to JTB World there is a new AutoCAD variable that controls that: XDWGFADECTL Go to tools > options > display tab > and at the bottom right corner find FADE CONTROL. Under it is xref display. Or, type it in, and set it as you…

I hope everyone who is able to, is enjoying the end of their long holiday weekend.  I'll be taking  Memorial Day off in a couple weeks, so I thought I'd take another shot at adding to Art's great contributions to the H-Factor. One of the best ways to convey your message in an email is…

Those of you who have set the option to use the third button/wheel as the cursor menu may have noticed that you get the condensed AutoCAD cursor menu, not the expanded HydraCAD cursor menu. Somewhere along the line AutoCAD 'broke' the way cursor menus are supposed to load, with the result being that AutoCAD's takes…