Changing Your Key Settings in AutoCAD
Hitting the F1 key by mistake is the bane of every AutoCAD user’s life. By accidently hitting will slow the program down to a halt whilst it loads the help files. I have known people in the past to remove the F1 from their keyboard! Drastic, buy very effective!
However, AutoCAD is very easily modified, and so luckily I will explain how to change the program settings so the F1 key is actually a cancel button!
Don’t worry, that sounds more complex than it is, Auto Desk are very good at making their programs user friendly as possible, so fortunately for us, this is a simple change to make us all very happy!
I have known people in the past to remove the F1 from their keyboard!
Ok, so assuming you have opened up AutoCAD, and have a drawing open (this can be a blank drawing), we can move to eliminate the F1 keys function.
Open the customise window by typing CUI.
In the upper left panel, scroll through and find keyboard shortcuts. Click on the plus sign to expand it. You should see shortcut keys and temporary override keys.
Next, in the lower left, you should see the command list. Find the cancel command. You can hit C and that will pop you to the start of the "c" commands, you should be able to find it easily from there.
Once you've found it, grab it and drag it up to the shortcut keys under the keyboard shortcuts. It doesn't matter where, as long as it is in the shortcut keys section. Click on the cancel under the shortcut keys to select it.
Now, if you look over on the bottom right, you should see the properties for the cancel command. Click on the key(s) line to select it, then click on the three dots.
In the box where it says “Press the New Shortcut Key” press F1.
Click OK, and then again to exit to the CUI dialog,
Your F1 key should now work just like your escape key!
I hope this has been useful, please contact me if you would like any further help with this.