From the course: Learning AutoCAD for Mac 2020

Different versions of AutoCAD - AutoCAD for Mac Tutorial

From the course: Learning AutoCAD for Mac 2020

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Different versions of AutoCAD

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- [Instructor] I want to talk for a moment about AutoCAD as a software product in general. The first release of AutoCAD occurred in December of 1982, and it has continued to this day to be one of the most ubiquitous computer aided drafting and design applications available. About 10 years later, AutoCAD release 12 was the last version to natively support the Mac operating system. The following year in 1993, AutoCAD LT was introduced as a lower cost version of AutoCAD with some reduced capabilities. They had some time pass, and finally in 2010, AutoCAD for Mac 2011 was released. This was the first version to run on Mac OS 10, and the first to run on any Apple product in 17 years. The following year, AutoCAD for Mac LT 2012 was released. For reference, AutoCAD LT and AutoCAD for Mac LT have the same features and capabilities as the full versions except for two key differences. LT products do not support creating or viewing 3D models, nor do they support extensibility. Extensibility simply refers to the fact that you cannot use programming languages like Lisp or apps downloaded through the Autodesk app store to add features and tools to AutoCAD LT. Another difference used to be the upgrade path, but with newer pricing models this is no longer really a factor. I want to mention all of this because whether you're using AutoCAD for Windows or AutoCAD for Mac, LT or full, AutoCAD files can be saved and exchanged with either platform and on almost any release, enabling you to share your files with colleagues no matter which operating system they are using. In a later video, we'll go into the differences of the file types themselves, including saving a file backwards for compatibility with earlier releases. But I wanted to point out that no matter the version, saving files between the full or LT versions or between Mac and PC should cause no issues or compatibility errors.

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