AutoCAD Tip – Missing Start Tab?

February 14, 2022 By Dennis Collin

Recently on one of Cadline’s AutoCAD training courses a delegate reported that their start tab page for accessing recent files, templates and tutorials wasn’t showing, and was looking like the image below:

Normally when AutoCAD is started a splash screen is displayed providing different options. However, the start tab can be disabled if certain system variables are set to non-standard values.

To fix this, open AutoCAD and start a new drawing. In the command line type:

STARTMODE <Press Enter> Set to ‘1’ (One)

SDI <Press Enter> Set to ‘0’ (Zero)

SDI is a variable that forces AutoCAD only to have one document open at a time.

Restart AutoCAD. The Start tab should appear providing access to recent files, tutorials etc. Like the image below: