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Installation

Requirements

Before installing the AutoCAD Python Library, ensure you have:

  • Python 3.8 or higher
  • AutoCAD 2010 or later
  • Windows OS (COM support is Windows-only)
  • pip (Python package manager)

Installation Steps

pip install AutoCAD

2. Verify Installation

from AutoCAD import AutoCAD

# This should initialize without errors
cad = AutoCAD()
print("AutoCAD library installed successfully!")

Dependencies

The library automatically installs these dependencies:

  • pywin32 - For COM (Component Object Model) interface with AutoCAD
  • psutil - For process management

Manual Dependency Installation

If you encounter issues, install dependencies manually:

pip install pywin32
pip install psutil
pip install pythoncom

Troubleshooting

"Cannot find AutoCAD.Application"

This error means AutoCAD is not installed on your system. You need to:

  1. Install AutoCAD from Autodesk
  2. Ensure AutoCAD is properly registered in Windows

"pywin32 not found"

Install it manually:

pip install pywin32
python -m pip install pywin32

AutoCAD is not running

By default, the library tries to connect to an existing AutoCAD instance. You can check:

from AutoCAD import is_autocad_running

if is_autocad_running():
    print("AutoCAD is running")
else:
    print("Please open AutoCAD first")

Development Installation

To contribute to the project:

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/Jones-peter/AutoCAD.git
cd AutoCAD

# Install in development mode
pip install -e .

# Install development dependencies
pip install pytest black flake8

Docker (Experimental)

While Docker doesn't support COM directly, you can use WSL2 with Docker:

FROM python:3.11

WORKDIR /app

RUN pip install AutoCAD

COPY . .

CMD ["python", "your_script.py"]

IDE Setup

VS Code

Add to your .vscode/settings.json:

{
    "python.linting.enabled": true,
    "python.linting.pylintEnabled": true,
    "[python]": {
        "editor.defaultFormatter": "ms-python.python",
        "editor.formatOnSave": true
    }
}

PyCharm

  1. Go to Settings > Project > Python Interpreter
  2. Click the + button
  3. Search for "AutoCAD"
  4. Install the package

Next Steps