Tipster Kent Elrod shares a tip to help us be certain that our AutoCAD data is accurate.

"This is a simple but important tip. When setting a value in AutoCAD to zero, the dialog box or Command line may show a zero, but always swipe over that if it's in a dialog box, and type a zero (or type a zero at the Command line, depending on the interface). Many times, because of the precision setting, a very small value will be rounded to zero, causing growing frustration when the command continues to not work as expected. Two areas that come to mind are the snapang variable, and in Style, when you want to set the text height to zero. This applies no matter what value you are wanting to set; don't assume the value shown is accurate. Always type the exact value in rather than relying on what is shown."

Notes from Cadalyst tip reviewer Brian Benton: This isn't something that most of us would think of, but it is a valid concern — rounding errors do occur. AutoCAD, like Microsoft Excel and many otheadvanced data-handling programs, always stores the absolute true value of the number regardless of where the precision setting is. You want it to. It gives you more precise calculations, even if all you need is one or two decimal places. If something doesn’t add up, check your precision and expand the number of decimal places to be shown; you might see the issue.