Creating a North Arrow in AutoCAD: Step-by-Step Guide

In this video, we will work on the North arrow. Let's go File, New.

Choose our template. Let's go File, Save. And let's save this as North arrow.

I will hit Save. Let's add our layer. Layer properties.

New layer. A-SIMS, S-Y-M-S. Choose our color of 120.

And hit OK. And double-click to make this layer active. I'll close layer properties.

And Control-S to save. If we look at this object on our handout, we can see that it is two circles, and then lines starting from the center of the circle. The lines that go to the left, right, and bottom are thin lines.

And the line that goes from the center to the top of the circles is a thick line. This is one way to draw a North arrow. There are hundreds and hundreds of ways to draw a North arrow, depending on the discipline or simply the Designer's preference.

In this case, we can see that the big circle is a half-inch radius. Then we have 1 over 32-inch P-line width. We'll talk about that in a minute.

And then a 1 over 64-inch offset. Let's start with what we know, and that is a circle with a half-inch radius. Again, we will place the center of the circle at 0,0. Let's go to Circle.

Specify, which is click or type, 0,0 for the center. Enter. I can see that it is asking for radius.

That is the geometry dimension I have. So I can do 1 over 2 for a half-inch radius. And hit ENTER to lock it in.

Let's do a zoom extents on our middle mouse wheel by double-clicking. And I'll scroll out just once. Control-S to save.

To start, we want to draw in the lines that go across the circle horizontally and across the circle vertically. Now, the line that goes horizontally is all the same width. So this line can be drawn at once, just like we drew for our detail symbol.

Let's do this together. Let's go to Line, and I'll do Shift-Right-Click-Quadrant from this side to the Shift-Right-Click-Quadrant on the other side. Click.

I'll hit ENTER to say that I'm done. And the next line I would like to draw is from the bottom quadrant to the center here. Now, this center point, which is roughly here, has three separate snaps.

The center of the circle, the midpoint of the line we just drew, and 0,0. In this case, we want to use the most specific geometry. Now, let's say that we drew this circle, and we've forgotten if we typed in 0,0 for the center.

The line was drawn relative to the circle. But we know that this line segment that is going to go here should go to 0,0. It is acceptable to use any of these three options, center, midpoint, or 0,0.

And it is up to you to know, when you're working professionally, which is the safest option. Sometimes the fastest option might not double-check your work. So, make sure you're being careful to choose the right option.

In this case, we'll draw the line twice. First, for practice, and second, for the more accurate location. For practice, let's go line, shift-right-click quadrant, and that's here, and then shift-right-click midpoint.

And this is the middle of a line segment. That's represented with a triangle, and we can click here and hit ENTER to say that we're done. Now, I'll undo, and I'll do line, shift-right-click quadrants, and my second point, again, is specify, so I can click or type.

In this case, I'll go 0,0, enter, and then enter one more time to say that I am done. Now, it is clear that this was the right geometry to begin with, so we could have used the midpoint, the center point, or 0,0. The last line at the top is what's called a polyline, and we can see the polyline tool next to the line tool.

The polyline tool has more options and more features than a line. A line is simply a 2D object from one point to another point. A polyline, the word poly meaning many, can have multiple line segments, including arcs or curves, and can have other data, like thickness.

And that's what we see here. We have a p-line width. So in this case, let's choose polyline, and this time, I'll go shift-right-click endpoints to choose the endpoint of the line we just drew to the shift-right-click quadrant at the top of the circle, and enter to say that I am done.

Now, to start, a polyline looks identical to a regular line, except for one feature. When I select a regular line, you can see that it has square grips at each endpoint, and a square grip at the midpoint. We'll talk about grips later in the course.

For now, I'll hit escape to deselect, and I'll select the polyline at the top. The polyline has a flat, rectangular grip at the midpoint, and this is a very quick sign that will tell me that this is a polyline. In order to change the width of this polyline, I can select the polyline, right-click properties, and go to my global width option, and change this to 1 over 32, enter.

Remember, the properties panel has many different options that can be changed at any time. It's not just telling you data. It is editable geometry.

I'll undo that so that we can look at the polyline edit tool, or the P-edit tool. If I go to the home tab, modify panel, and use the modify dropdown, I can see the polyline edit tool right here. It looks like a pencil on top of the polyline icon.

This tool is asking me to select a polyline, and I have one here, and now the options on my command prompt will tell me what I can do. In this case, I want to change the width, so I can do W, enter, specify new width is 1 over 32, enter, and enter to say that I'm done. Control-S to save.

You may have noticed at this point there are many ways to do things in AutoCAD. As we move forward in the course, we will be doing things one way, there might be another way to do it, and you might prefer the other way. Feel free to experiment by using a slightly different tool, or workflow, or order to your workflow, and please reach out to your instructor if you have any questions.

There is not always one right way to do a process in AutoCAD, but we might only have time to show one as we move through the course. It is important for you to understand your preferred workflow when working in AutoCAD. The final piece of geometry we need to add is an offset, and we see that on our handout.

An offset is a copy of geometry that's a certain distance away. If you offset a line, it will offset the line identically as a copy a certain distance away. But if you offset a circle, or a closed polyline like a rectangle, that object will get smaller or bigger depending on if you go to the inside or to the outside.

In this case, I'm going to go up to the offset tool, which is this one here on the modify panel, and notice that it's first asking me for an offset distance. The offset distance, according to our handout, is 1 over 64. Enter.

And now it's saying select the object to offset. I'll choose my circle, and it will show a circle offset depending on which side of the circle I am on. If I go to the outside of the circle, it will preview a line on the outside, and if I go to the inside of my circle, it will preview a line to the inside.

These are both previews. I need to click the geometry to lock it in. Now I can hit ENTER to close my offset tool, zoom extents, and control-s to save.

In the next video, we will finish our drafting symbols with the datum point.