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Tip and Trick Detail
Helping to Make Points Easier to See
*Applies to: AutoCAD R12, 13, 14, 2000, 2000i, 2002, 2004 and 2005*

Have you ever noticed small dots on the screen as well as on your drawings.  This problem with small dots usually doesn't appear in dimensions when plotting, but other items in the drawing such as blocks can contain this problem.  These small dots are caused by a display setting for Point objects in the drawing.  The display setting is controlled by a system variable called PDMODE.  PDMODE controls what type of appearance that a Point will display in the drawing.  By default a Point is displayed as a dot, but if you set PDMODE to a value of 1 AutoCAD will be forced to display a Point as nothing or blank on the screen.  Allowing for a cleaner plot of your drawing.  As well as turning off the display of Points you can also have a point display as one of its other settings on the screen as well.  Below is a listing of the values that PDMODE can have and the appearance of the Point next to it.

0 -  32 -  64 -  96 - 
1 -  33 -  65 -  97 - 
2 -  34 -  66 -  98 - 
3 -  35 -  67 -  99 - 
4 -  36 -  68 -  100 - 

Command Line:
Command: pdmode
Enter new value for PDMODE <0>: 1

Related AutoCAD commands: DDPTYPE, PDSIZE and POINT