Autodesk QuickCAD review

Ever wanted to produce clear, accurate drawings complete with dimensions, but without the hassle of a drawing board?

QuickCAD lets you do just that - and for less than the price of a set of draughtsman's pens. This cut-down little brother of industry-standard program AutoCAD provides an on-screen drawing board and T-square - perfect for those who want to learn the ropes of computer-aided design (CAD). QuickCAD can't match AutoCAD's prowess at creating fully fledged 3D plans or virtual objects, but includes enough professional features to make it a serious 2D precision drawing package.

On opening, QuickCAD presents you with three options: Beginner, Advanced and Expert. The difference between them is in the number of toolbars it dispays. Start with Beginner, and you can add tools as your expertise grows. Right-click on any icon, and you're presented with a full range of toolbars ready to activate.

To be efficient, CAD must smoothly link together lines, curves, circles and other geometric shapes. QuickCAD's interface ensures you can quickly master the basics. You can set up guidelines and grids to help you line up objects quickly and accurately. The program's 'auto-snap' tools help you connect end points, intersections and centres of circles, to name but a few. A helpful 'command line' at the bottom of the screen anticipates your next move, and prompts you accordingly.

Your finished technical drawing or floor plan will usually consist of hundreds of individual lines, arcs and circles. For ease of handling, you can drag your mouse pointer across these objects to 'rubber band' them, and right-click to group them. These elements will then move as one object. To save time, QuickCAD's Content Library provides masses of standard symbols and ready-made components that you can drag and drop into your drawing. There are symbols to represent everthing from audio equipment to washing machines. Some of them are rather boxy, however, and may need a bit of re-jigging to make them presentable. The software also includes a palette of cross-hatch patterns, bitmaps and colours to help you fill objects in.

Scale is of paramount importance in any kind of plan. QuickCAD lest you scale drawing at a range of sizes, including 1:1 - although you'll have to remember to scale larger plans down for printing. Luckily, this an easy job, and QuickCAD lets you resize drawings to fit a variety of paper sizes.

To provide greater flexibility in editing your drawings, QuickCAD uses layers. For example, you can put text on one layer, furniture on another and reserve a third for a wiring diagram of your house. you can switch each layer on or off, depending on the level of information you need in a printout. If you're sending your plans to an architect, and want your QuickCAD drawing to be compatible with the professional-standard AutoCAD, then you must save it as a DWG file. The reverse procedure also works - but you may find that documents originally created using AutoCAD need a bit of editing before you can use them in QuickCAD.

If you're already familiar with CAD and are looking to develop your 3D modelling skills, QuickCAD is not the program for you. TurboCAD 9 Standard is budget software with 3D muscle. For anyone who wants to dabble in 2D, however, QuickCAD is the way to go.