Review by Dave Millman

I am not a full-time draftsman, far from it. What I’ve always wanted was perfect AutoCAD compatibility for occasional use, without paying for the full version of AutoCAD that I don’t need.

AutoCAD LT 2010 finally fills this requirement, and does it very well. I was able to open and edit AutoCAD 2010 files with no issues at all. Whether I was reviewing someone else’s drawings, or creating drawings of my own from scratch, this package delivers nicely.

Previous versions of LT have choked on some advanced AutoCAD features, and invariably the drawings I have to review include those features. Other times, I really need an AutoCAD feature that just isn’t included in the LT version. LT 2010 includes everything I can think of, including things like opening and editing in-place of external reference .dwg files, support for publishing to plotters, object alignment, and a lot of the block reference features.

It has almost everything…except it doesn’t have any of AutoCAD 2010 3D modelling and rending capabilities, and it won’t even print AutoCAD 3D images. This last one rankles a bit, because I inevitably have to call the client back and ask them to convert to a format I can handle, or print it themselves. I understand that AutoDesk has to reserve something for the premium product. But if AutoCAD LT 2010 just handled 3D printing, I’d give it 5 stars.

Four stars for near perfection, with great AutoCAD file compatibility (except 3D).