CAD Tip of the Day: How to Assign the Find Command to Ctrl+ F

How to Assign the Find Command to Ctrl+ F (a step by step guide)

Just about every Windows application you own—Word, Excel, Notepad, your browser—uses Ctrl+F to launch Find… except AutoCAD®.  Hit Ctrl+F in AutoCAD and you get … .  Really?  Because F3 wasn’t sufficient? So let’s say we set Ctrl + F to be the Find command!

1. How to Assign the Find Command to Ctrl + F: 
2. Open the CUI dialog box by typing CUI at the command line. 
3. Under Customizations in All Files, scroll down and expand Partial Customization Files, then expand Custom.  Now expand the Keyboard Shortcuts node. 
4. Under Command List, drag the Find command up into the Customizations pane and release it next to Shortcut Keys to add it to the listing. MEMO:  If the recently added command does not initially appear in the Shortcuts pane over on the right, click OK out of the CUI, then re-open it and navigate back to the Keyboard Shortcuts node under Custom. 
5. In the Shortcuts pane, next to the Find command, click in the Keys column to display an edit box—turn off Caps Lock—then press Ctrl + F and press [Enter].   The Find command will now alphabetize in the list, and you should now see a green checkmark in the column preceding the Find command name. 
6. Click OK to close out of the CUI, then hit Ctrl + F to launch Find.

This quick tip was published on AUGI dated January 18th, 2013 by Michael Beall. He is an Autodesk Authorized Author and the owner of CAD Trainer Guy, LLC.  He has been presenting onsite CAD training around the planet for over 30 years.