Work Area toolbar
When you access Design, the Work Area toolbar is displayed beneath the horizontal scroll bar to help you control the placement of items and the drawing of lines and shapes.
In-Out/Up-Down
The In-Out/Up-Down button, located in the Work Area toolbar, allows you to ignore (button OFF) the current In-Out and Up-Down values of an item, or to keep these values (button ON) when using the Duplicate and Move commands on an item.
Area Snap
The Area Snap button, located in the Work Area toolbar, is useful when working in the Floor Plan area. Whether you work with a grid or not, the Floor Plan area is a rectangular pattern of dots that extends over the area that you specify as the drawing limits. Using the Floor Plan area is similar to placing a sheet of graph paper under a drawing. The grid helps you align objects and visualize the distances between them. The grid (Floor Plan area) is not plotted. If you zoom in or out of your drawing, you may need to adjust grid spacing for the new magnification.
Area Snap restricts the movement of the crosshairs to intervals that you define. When The Area Snap mode is on, the cursor seems to adhere or "snap" to an invisible rectangular grid. Snap is useful for specifying precise points with the arrow keys or the pointing device.
As you work, you can turn Area (Grid) and Area Snap mode on and off, and you can change the grid and snap spacing.
Area Snap spacing does not have to match grid spacing. For example, you might set a wide grid spacing to be used as a reference, but maintain a closer snap spacing for accuracy in specifying points. For instructions on changing the snap spacing, click here.
Click the Area Snap button in the Work Area toolbar to activate it. When Area Snap is deactivated, items move freely.
Item Snap
Click the Item Snap button in the Work Area toolbar to enable or disable it. When Item Snap is enabled and you move, rotate, or drag one item near another item, the items' snap points are displayed. If you click while these snap points are displayed, the items snap to each other's points and the snap points then disappear. The default snap distance is 3 inches.
When Item Snap is disabled, items do not display their snap points while they are being moved, dragged, or rotated. Also, items will not snap even if they are placed within the snap distance specified in the Work Area Settings.
For more information on snap points, click here.
Collision
When you move an item in the design, it may collide with other items already present in the drawing. When enabled, the Collision button prevents this from happening and keeps items from overlapping. To bypass this mechanism, disable the button in the Work Area toolbar, or press the CTRL key while moving the item.
Items that overlap are displayed with a diagonal hatch pattern and a window appears, on the lower right corner, to display the collided items.
Also, when the cursor moves over the colliding items, a pop-up displays them on the lower right corner.
Ortho
The Ortho button is similar to the drafter's T-square. When Ortho is enabled, the cursor is restricted to move in 45-degree increments as you draw lines. When Ortho is disabled, lines can move freely. This button is located in the Work Area toolbar.
You can also use the Ortho button to establish vertical or horizontal alignments. Imposing orthogonal constraints allows you to draw more quickly. For example, you can create a series of perpendicular lines by turning on Ortho mode before you start drawing. Because the lines are constrained to be parallel to the horizontal and vertical axes, you know that the lines are perpendicular.
Link
The Link button, located in the Work Area toolbar, allows you to perform grouped or single editing tasks on walls/construction lines and lines/shapes.
For example, when you move a wall or construction line group
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enable the Link button to move the entire group.
OR -
disable the Link button to move a single wall/construction line in the group.
If the Item Snap button is enabled and you move or rotate lines or shapes (added through the Annotations ribbon) near or on one or more other drawn lines/shapes
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enable the Link button to connect them and create a single object upon releasing the mouse button or clicking to confirm the position,
OR -
disable the Link button if you do not want to connect them together upon releasing the mouse button or clicking to confirm the position.