Press K for the Draw group in the toolbar: Line, Arc, Rect, Circle, Triangle and Cross. Use them for the things a plan needs that are not building fabric — custom furniture, circulation arrows, zone bubbles, a site boundary, a note on the drawing. They never affect rooms, floor areas or the plan check.
The six modes
| Mode | Gesture |
|---|---|
| Line | Click points to draw. Close onto the first point for a fillable shape; Enter or double-click leaves it open. |
| Arc | From the last point: click a point the arc passes through, then its end. |
| Rect | Two opposite corners. Shift makes it a square. |
| Circle | Click the centre, then the radius — or type the radius and press Enter. |
| Triangle | Two opposite corners of its box; the apex sits at the top middle. Shift makes the base equal the height. |
| Cross | Two opposite corners of its box; the arms are a third of it. Shift makes it symmetrical. |
Line and arc share one outline, so a shape can mix both: switch to Arc mid-outline to curve a segment, then switch back.
Rect, triangle and cross are the same two-corner gesture, and all three land as ordinary shapes: their corners get handles like any other, so a triangle leans by dragging its apex and a cross’s arms are yours to widen. They are drawn upright whichever way round you pick the two corners — the shape never depends on the direction you dragged.
The cross is the plus-shaped outline, filled like any closed shape. For an X across something — a void, an area struck out — draw two lines in Line mode; that is two strokes, not one shape.
Combining shapes
Select two or more closed shapes and the panel offers four ways to combine them. Select them in the order you mean: the first one is the subject, each later one is applied to it, and the result keeps the first shape’s line and fill colours. Shift-click adds a shape to the selection.
| Button | What you get |
|---|---|
| Union | Merge the shapes into one outline. |
| Subtract | Cut every later shape out of the first one. |
| Intersect | Keep only what all of them cover. |
| Exclude | Keep what is covered by an odd number of them — the overlaps drop out. |
The originals are replaced by the result, in one undo step, and the result is left selected — so operations chain: union three shapes, then cut a circle out of what you get.
Two things follow from what a combined shape is:
- A cut that lands wholly inside a shape leaves a hole. The result is still one shape; the panel’s readout says how many holes it carries, and the fill reads through them. Delete the shape and its holes go with it.
- Curves survive where the cut leaves them curved. Subtract a rectangle from a circle and the arc comes back as an arc, with a handle on it — not as two dozen straight facets. A circle nothing cut stays a circle. The exception is a hole: hole edges come back straight.
If a selected shape is still an open line the buttons are replaced by a note — tick Closed shape in its panel first, since an open line has no inside to add or cut.
Colour and fill
The tool panel sets the defaults for the next shape, not the selected one:
- Line colour (new shapes) — five inks plus Default ink.
- Fill colour (closed shapes) — a strip of zone tints plus No fill. Only a closed shape can take a fill.
A shape already drawn is recoloured by selecting it and using the same rows in its own panel.
Snapping and precision
Sketch shapes snap like everything else — to wall ends, corners, intersections and the grid — so a circulation arrow can start exactly on a door jamb.
They also snap to what you have already drawn: the ends, midpoints and edges of other sketch shapes, a circle’s centre, and the corners of the outline you are drawing right now. Three sides of a rectangle in, the fourth corner lines up with the first and closes on it exactly. See snapping, the grid and the reference point.
What this doesn’t do
- Sketches are not walls. They enclose nothing: no room is detected inside a sketched rectangle, and no area is counted.
- They are not in 3D. Sketch shapes are plan annotation and stay in the plan.
- No text inside a shape. Text is the label tool (T).
- Booleans need closed shapes. An open line has no inside, so it can be neither added to another shape nor cut out of one.
Next
Layers if you want the sketched notes on screen but off the printed sheet.