by Dennis Collin
Grip handles are a simple intuitive method by which users can edit AutoCAD drawings. This functionality has been in AutoCAD for many years, but these tools can be used to quickly reshape, move, rotate, interrogate and manipulate objects.
Fig. A selection of different objects with the grip handles shown as blue clickable shapes.
One of my favourite uses of these tools is to obtain a quick measurement of an object. Simply select an object and move the cursor over a blue control point. Depending upon the object selected a measurement will display showing such information as length, radius or angle.
Fig. Using the grip quick measure function.
NB: For this to work Dynamic Input needs to be switched on (F12 shortcut).
Text and dimension objects can also be selected and adjusted to aid drawing clarity.
Fig. Editing text formatting is easy with intuitive control handles for text width and positioning etc.
Grip handles have different modes for editing, the default mode is a stretch operation, but by pressing the spacebar or the return key other options such as move, rotate, scale and mirror are available.
For some objects like hatches and polylines multi-functional grips are available to provide object-specific and sometimes grip-specific, editing options.
Fig. Using these grip controls to insert a vertex in a polyline is quicker than the legacy edit polyline command.