Rotating drawings
If a drawing opens in the wrong orientation, use the two rotate buttons in the toolbar. One rotates the page clockwise and the other rotates it anticlockwise. Click the appropriate button until the drawing is the right way up.
You may need to rotate a drawing every time you switch to a new sheet, as different drawings in the same project can have different orientations.
Zooming
There are two ways to zoom in and out of a drawing.
Mouse wheel
Roll the mouse wheel towards your monitor to zoom in and back towards yourself to zoom out. The view zooms to wherever your mouse pointer is on screen, so you can target a specific area simply by pointing at it.
The mouse wheel zoom is quite sensitive — it does not need to be rolled very much. Use smooth, small movements for the best control.
Toolbar buttons
Use the Zoom In and Zoom Out buttons in the toolbar for a more controlled, step-by-step zoom. These are useful when you want precise, incremental adjustments.
Panning
Panning moves the drawing around the workspace without changing the zoom level.
Pan tool
Select the Pan tool from the toolbar to click and drag the drawing around the screen.
Middle mouse button (recommended)
Press and hold the mouse wheel (middle click) at any time to temporarily activate the pan tool. Release the button to return to whatever tool you were using. This is especially useful during takeoff, when your left click is being used to plot measurement points — you can hold the mouse wheel to drag the view along and then continue measuring without switching tools.
Changing scroll behaviour
By default, the mouse wheel zooms in and out. If you prefer the wheel to scroll the page up and down instead, you can change this in your preferences.
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Open your System Preferences (the cogwheel icon at the top of the screen) or Project Preferences.
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Go to the Controls tab.
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Turn off Scroll to zoom in and out. The mouse wheel will now scroll the page up and down instead of zooming.
If you change this in System Preferences, the setting applies to all future projects. If you only want to change it for the current project, use Project Preferences instead. In some cases you may need to change it in both places — for example, if you set a system preference but the current project was created before you made the change, you may also need to update the project preference.
Measure length tool
The Measure Length tool allows you to take a quick measurement on a drawing to verify that the scale is correct or to check a dimension before committing to a full takeoff.
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Click the pencil icon in the toolbar to open the measuring tools menu. This menu contains all of the measuring and text label tools.
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Select Measure Length.
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Left-click to set your start point on the drawing.
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Left-click again to set your end point.
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Right-click to finalise the measurement. The measured distance is displayed on screen.
This tool is particularly useful after setting the scale. Measure a known dimension — such as a doorway or a scale bar on the drawing — to confirm the scale is accurate before you begin your takeoff. For detailed guidance on setting and verifying the scale, see Setting the Scale.