[Cathan]

I use cad every day at work pretty much and as a structural engineer it's a way of life. Best way to learn cad is just to use it for a long period of time but the next best way is to get a book and crank out the exercises to learn all the tools and how best to use them. I use a hybrid of keyboard and mouse (lotta older people use nothin but the keyboard but I can't understand how they select groups of objects to move them around). I hotkey a bunch of commands like move, copy, stretch, trim, straight line to keys my left hand rests on naturally. After that it's really just about getting used to using the various functions and though there may be many... you really only need a handful or so and the time to get good with them, like the ones I listed above mainly...

As far as scaling, xref'ing and plotting.... You will need help with learning that stuff. I use this stuff daily and I still have to ask questions occasionally to get drawings to work.

Pick up a book on cad 2007 whatever version you're using if applicable and just go through the thing as you have time to learn the functions. Each function is like a tool in a toolbox. The more you understand what they do the more tools you have in your toolbox but generally you're going to use the same tools over and over. Straight line, move, copy, stretch and trim are like wrenches, sockets and screw drivers...