CAG - The influence of CAG
Systems on Industry and Society
Graphic Communication
Knowledge & Understanding
Introduction

Computers have largely replaced drawing boards in industry and
commerce. A CAG system of drawing offers many advantages over the
traditional drawing board method.
Vs
Advantages of a CAG system over a drawing board
Storage and retrieval

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Drawings can be stored on hard drive, floppy disc etc.
Less storage space is required than paper drawings.
Drawings can be repeatedly printed with no deterioration in quality.
Ease of Modification

Changes can be made quickly and easily, this reduces time and cost,
which in turn increases productivity.
Repetitive elements(library)

Items that you design need only be drawn once, saved to a library file,
then retrieved and positioned each time they are required on a
drawing. This saves time and effort, which increases productivity.
Advantages of a CAG system over a drawing board
Drawing speed and drawing quality

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Drawing production is much faster using CAD than using traditional
methods, so the company will save time and money.
The quality of printed drawings is also much higher when using CAD.
Standardisation of drawings

Standardisation of drawings is often determined by drawing standards
such as BSI. Standardisation of drawing layouts and styles can be
easily be created in the ‘in-house’ or corporate style adopted by the
operator or the company.
Drawing size and flexibility

Drawings can be enlarged or reduced with no loss of detail
Disadvantages of a CAG system over a drawing board
Costs and other implications of buying a CAG system

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Initial costs of buying computer systems and software can be
expensive for companies.
Retraining of staff who are used to drawing with traditional
methods.
A great deal of time can be taken up converting existing paper
drawings to computer drawings
As computer systems can be used to produce quicker CAD
drawings less people need to be employed.
Power failure - staff would be unable to produce work.
CAG - Word Processing/ Spreadsheets/
Illustration/Desktop Publishing
Graphic Communication
Knowledge & Interpretation
Word Processing
Word processing packages are used for inputting and editing text.
They are used to produce a wide range of text documents - e.g. home and business
letters, mailing lists, reports and manuals - and to prepare text for use in books,
magazines and newsletters.
Word processors contain many features that help users to produce professional-looking
documents quickly and accurately. The main features of a typical word processing
package are:
•Text can be added, deleted, altered and
moved.
•Spellchecker - checks a document for
misspelled words.
•Text formatting - changing the font, size
etc
•Page formatting - sets margins, columns,
headers and footers etc
•Tables and graphics can be included in
the text.
Spreadsheets
Spreadsheet packages are used for inputting and automatically
calculating tables of numbers.
Before electronic spreadsheets were introduced, tables of figures had
to be calculated manually. This was very tedious and time-consuming.
Spreadsheets are mainly used to:
 automatically calculate tables of numbers
 produce financial reports
 produce graphs and charts for presentations
Illustration
Illustration packages can be used to add colour, tone and texture to CAD drawings,
as well as to create new drawings from scratch.
Illustrations are an important part of design for books and advertising, TV/movie
animation and computer games.
The main features of a typical illustration package are:

drawing tools

colour-mixing tools

line styles

fill styles

grids, guides, snap and rulers

autotracing
Desktop Publishing
DTP packages are used to create publications such as
newsletters, brochures, magazines and books by combining text
and images from other sources. They contain a wide range of
power functions allowing very complex page layouts to be
created quickly and accurately.
The main features of a typical DTP package are:
 Importing of text and graphics
 Precise positioning
 Powerful text formatting and styling
 Colour-mixing tools
 Page formatting
 Guides, snap and rulers
 automatic wrapping of text around
graphics