A drawing holds a model. To issue it, you put views of that model onto sheets, and export a sheet as a true-scale vector PDF.
Before you start
Drawings must be switched on in Settings → Modules: see Turning modules on and off. It is off by default.
Views and sheets
- A view is a way of looking at the model: a plan of a floor, or an internal elevation of a wall. Its scale belongs to the view.
- A sheet has a paper size, an orientation, a title, a drawing number and a title block design. You place one or more views on it.
The same view can sit on two sheets under different names, because a view's title belongs to its placement on a sheet, not to the view.
Open the studio's settings dialog and use the Views and Sheets tabs. In Sheets, New adds a sheet, and the buttons beneath the list duplicate or remove one.
Scale and paper
Dimensions, line weights and hatching are measured in millimetres on the paper, not in the model. Change a view's scale and they stay the size they would be on the printed sheet.
A sheet is never shrunk to fit. If a view is too large for its box at the chosen scale, the export refuses and tells you what would fix it: a standard scale that fits, a larger paper size, or turning the sheet. You can still choose Export anyway, overrunning the sheet.
Placing views by hand
By default, views on a sheet are stacked in equal bands. To control them, select the sheet and choose Preview… to see it as it will plot, or Compose… to arrange it.
In Compose…:
- Drag a view to move it, and use the handles to resize its frame.
- Drag a view's title separately from its frame.
- Views snap to the edges and centres of the drawing area and of other views. Hold Alt to move without snapping.
- Arrow keys nudge a selected view by 1 mm, and Shift with an arrow by 10 mm.
One drag is one step in undo.
A view's title text and whether it is shown are set in the Sheets tab, in the sheet's list of placed views. The Title checkbox shows or hides it, and the title text can be set for this sheet alone; reset it to follow the view's name again. A frame dragged off the drawing area is reported as a placement problem at export, and the fix is to move it back with Compose.
Exporting
Choose Export PDF under the sheet list. The PDF is true to scale, and its dimensions, hatching and line weights follow the sheet's standards.
To send a sheet to someone, use the Share dialog: see Sending a drawing. To combine sheets from several drawings, see Drawing Sets.