Do either of the following scenarios sound familiar? You’re out in the field, trying to add some notes to your drawing to document an as-built condition, and you think, “It’d be really nice if the team at the office could see this now.” You’re on the phone with a colleague or client, trying to explain something about one of your drawings, and they’re just not understanding. You’re thinking,“Gosh, it’d be great if I could just show them what I mean.” You’ve been there? Me too. And today is your lucky day! That’s because with the launch of AutoCAD WS, you can now put your drawings in the cloud so you have access to them wherever you go. Once your drawing is in AutoCAD WS, you can make basic edits to the drawing and add markups that are saved right in the file. They’re only shared if you want them to be, so it’s up to you who else can see them (if anybody). You can either work on the drawing and then send the comments to somebody else after the fact, or you can work collaboratively with one or more people at the same time. Way cool. (Although when you try it, remember that everybody sees the same thing all the time. So if you want to pan or zoom, make sure you’re not interrupting somebody else’s work when you do it. Shaan Hurley and I got in a bit of a tug-of-was yesterday when I didn’t realize what was going on…oops.) Here’s what AutoCAD WS looks like on the web, in your browser of choice: You’ll see a lot of your favorite AutoCAD functions here—despite the fact that it’s a simplified web editor, there are over 100 commands available. If you have an iOS device—an iPhone, an iPad, or an iPod Touch, go get AutoCAD WS Mobile from the iTunes App Store. The mobile version is more scaled back than the web version, but still amazingly functional. So, how do you get AutoCAD WS? For your browser, just visit www.autocadws.com. Either create a new account, or use the one you already have for the discussion forums or some of our other communities. AutoCAD WS is part of the Autodesk Single Sign-On, so if you already have an account with us, try that one before you create a new one. For your iPad/iPhone/iPod, fire up iTunes and search for AutoCAD WS. Notice the little price bubble? That’s right, it’s FREE! Free is good. And now that you’ve got AutoCAD WS, how do you get your drawings in there? Again, there are two ways. You can either upload drawings from the web version, or go grab the brand new plug-in available for AutoCAD LT 2011 (English). Find it at http://www.autocadws.com/downloads. This plug-in adds a tab to your ribbon with all the tools for uploading and sharing. Anybody can use it—you don’t have to be on subscription. Pretty neat, don’t you think? Will this help you in your day-to-day work? (Maybe it’ll even help convince the boss that you need an iPad?)

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