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Help centre · Drawings and sheets

Sheets

Lay out plans, sections, views and schedules on titled sheets, draft on them, and export or present the set.

Sheets are the pages of your drawing set. You place drawings on paper at a scale, add your title block and revisions, and export the set as one PDF. Everything on a sheet follows the model.

Open Sheets

Choose File → Sheets…, or press Sheets in the 2D drawings view. Sheets opens over the whole window; press 3D to go back to the model.

If the project has no sheets yet, press Create the first sheet. It starts with the active level's plan. New sheet adds another, numbered on from the last (A-101, A-102…).

Set up a sheet

Select a sheet to see its properties:

  • Paper: A4 to A0, Letter, Tabloid, ARCH C or ARCH D, in Landscape or Portrait.
  • Number, Name, Revision and Date.
  • Status: such as Preliminary, For planning, For tender or For construction.

Renumber sheets… numbers every sheet again, in order: a prefix, a starting number, a step and how many digits (A-101, A-102… or P-01, P-02…). Title blocks and detail callouts follow.

Place drawings

Press Add drawing and pick from:

  • Plans: one for each level.
  • Elevations and sections: the four elevations, the two built-in sections, and any section lines you've placed on the plan.
  • Saved views: pictures of views you've saved in 3D.
  • Schedules: door, window, room and other tables, and the reports you've saved (see Schedules and custom properties).
  • Text note: general notes, a key or a legend, with a heading, text size and width.

A new drawing goes clear of the others, at the largest scale that fits. Change its scale with the scale menu, including Custom… for any 1:N (1:75). Each drawing gets a numbered caption. Drag a drawing to move it; Remove from sheet takes it off.

Turn off Crop to the building to show the whole site.

Crop a drawing or add an enlarged detail

Click a plan or elevation on the sheet, then:

  • Crop to a box and drag a box over the drawing: it's cropped to that part, where you drew the box. Uncrop shows all of it again.
  • Crop to a shape and click the corners round the part to keep, such as an L round a wing. Click the first corner again, double-click or press Enter to close it, and Backspace takes a corner back. The drawing is cut to that shape, on the sheet and in PDF and DXF.
  • Enlarged detail… and drag a box round what to enlarge, such as a stair or a corner. A detail of that part goes on the sheet at a bigger scale, titled Detail 1 and so on. The drawing it's taken from shows a callout: a dashed box with the detail's number and sheet.

Change a detail's scale or title like any other drawing's.

Keep a view's style

A saved view saved with Remember the display is drawn with its style, section cut, levels, hidden tags and sun. Or pick a Style for it on the sheet, with Edges, Profiles, Ambient occlusion and Fog. At scale draws it in parallel projection at a true scale, for an axonometric at 1:100. Lines as vectors draws the edges as crisp lines that print sharp. See Styles and scenes.

Fill in the title block

The Title block panel holds the practice, logo, project number and drawn by. Client and location come from the project details. Choose a layout: Corner, Strip or Band. Add a box adds your own fields, such as Checked or Approved.

Auto-text

A box, a text mark or a table cell can hold auto-text in braces, filled in on each sheet: {Sheet number}, {Sheet name}, {Sheet} and {Sheets} (as in Sheet 3 of 12), {Date}, {Today}, {Revision}, {Status}, {Scale}, {Project}, {Project number}, {Client}, {Location}, {Drawn by} and {Practice}.

To reuse it, choose Save as a template…. Manage templates… lets you apply a template, Export as a file to share it, or Use for new projects. Import a template… brings in one a colleague exported.

Record a revision

Press Add a revision, then fill in Revision, Date and What changed. The sheet's revision moves on (P1 to P2, A to B) and the title block shows a revision table.

Draft on a sheet

The toolbar at the bottom of Sheets draws straight on the paper, in millimetres:

  • Lines, polylines, rectangles, circles and text.
  • Leaders: click the arrow's tip, any bends, then where the words go.
  • Revision clouds: click round the change, then double-click or press Enter.
  • Scrapbook: symbols to place: a north arrow, revision triangle, section and elevation marks, grid bubble, level datum, arrow, and a person, tree and car at 1:100.

Points snap to other marks; Shift keeps a line square or at 15°. With the select tool, drag a mark or its grips. Its panel sets the pen, line type, colour, fill, arrows and text size.

Grid bubbles and revision triangles count on as you place them: 1, 2, 3, or A, B, C (I and O are left out, as drawings do).

Offset, trim and fillet

  • Offset: click a line, polyline, rectangle or circle, then where its copy goes. The copy runs parallel through that point.
  • Trim: click the piece of a line, polyline or rectangle to cut away. It's cut back to the lines and circles that cross it on each side.
  • Fillet: set the Fillet radius, then click two lines: they're cut back or carried on to meet, joined by an arc of that radius. A radius of 0 meets them at a sharp corner. Click near a corner of a polyline or rectangle to round that corner.

Your own scrapbook

Drafting you use again, such as a stamp, a legend or a detail tag, goes in your own scrapbook. Select a mark and press Add to my scrapbook, or choose Scrapbook → Add this layer's drafting… to keep everything on the current layer together. It then appears under My scrapbook: pick it, then click where it goes, on any sheet in any project.

Your scrapbook is kept in this browser. Save my scrapbook… writes it to a file, and Open a scrapbook… adds a file's scraps, on another computer or from a colleague.

Tables from a spreadsheet

Press Bring in a table or a DXF → Table from a spreadsheet… and pick an Excel workbook (.xlsx) or a CSV file, then click where its top left corner goes. The first sheet of a workbook comes in, as Excel last showed it. Its panel sets the text size, the pen and whether the first row is bold headings. For a schedule that keeps up with the model, add a report instead (see Schedules and custom properties).

Title blocks and legends from CAD

Bring in a table or a DXF → Title block or legend from a DXF… brings a DXF onto the sheet as drafting: its lines, polylines, arcs and text, with its blocks. Each CAD layer goes on a drafting layer of the same name. Draw it 1:1 in millimetres (or inches, if the file says so) with its origin at the sheet's bottom left corner, and it lands where it was drawn. A drawing that doesn't fit from there is brought to that corner. One undo takes it off again.

Drafting layers keep marks organised. New marks go on the chosen layer. A hidden layer is left off every sheet and export, and a locked one can't be picked.

As in LayOut, a layer can also be:

  • Hidden on this sheet only (the eye with a slash beside it): the layer stays on the other sheets.
  • Shared on every sheet: what's on it shows on every sheet in the set, including ones you add later, such as a company stamp or a north arrow in the same place. Draw on it once, from any sheet. Unshare it and each sheet keeps its own copy.

Export the set

  • Export PDF: every sheet in one vector PDF.
  • This sheet as SVG: the current sheet.
  • DXF: This sheet as DXF, or All sheets as DXF as a ZIP, in paper millimetres with the drawings on their CAD layers.

Present the sheets

Press Present: the sheets full screen, with a pen. Use the arrow keys or Space to move between sheets, and Esc to finish. Press P for the pen and pick red, blue or black to mark up as you talk. When you finish, Keep on the sheets saves the marks as drafting; Let it go discards them.

For shadow study sheets, see Site and sun.

Still stuck? Contact us, or ask in the app: Help → Contact support.