At the bottom you will see another location like this;

This is the place where you arrange the behaviour of the CAD program. We can call modes of it.

2.3.1 OSNAP (F3)

Osnap is simply the program’s ability to snap on any object you draw. You can close and open it by clicking on this button or you may close and open using the button F3 on your keyboard. It is useful stuff while you are working on drawing. For example;

just draw a line without any dimension.

Then write “L” and cross your pointer over the line you already drew, come to the endpoint of the line you drew previously,

You will see that the pointer now has a square to show that it snapped a point which is an endpoint and it even says “endpoint”. So, you can click while it is attached to endpoint and continue drawing. This is because of the OSNAP. If you close it, it will not help you with these kinds of things, or it will be limited support. To arrange individually which points to be snapped you can go into the settings, simply you need to right click on the OSNAP, and you will see whole list of points to snap;

Or you can go to drafting settings > Object snap.

Here you have ability to open and close the object snap settings. You can play here however you want.

2.3.2 GRID (F7)

Grid is simply to close and open the gridlines. If you open it you will see the gridlines to help you;

2.3.3 SNAP (F9)

This mode simply limits you to only work on squares of a gridlines. You can only draw on a gridline as we see at the previous GRID mode. You can define the amount of spacing at the SNAP settings by; Right click SNAP > Setup.

Here you see the spacing amount.

2.3.4 OTRACK (F11)

OTRACK in other words, object tracking is another useful mode you need to get open for most of the time. So, let’s say you want to draw two parallel lines like this;

You start to draw the first line. It is ok. But when it comes to the second line, how can you arrange it so that is starting from the start point as the first line and ending with the end point of the first line. Here OTRACK comes in.

With OTRACK on,

1 Come the point where first line starts;

2 Then slightly move your pointer to the downwards you will see that nanoCAD is now organising for you and showing the dashed line;

3 Then click now the first point of the second line is completely at the same parallel place you want; you can continue drawing second line now with the help of the direction;

4 Now when you come to the endpoint of the second line you need to again arrange according to the first line, here you need move your pointer over the first line endpoint;

5 And at this point move your pointer slowly downwards, you will see it is aligning according to your first line endpoint.

6 The best happens when you come to the cross section of the end of the first point and the direction of the line you are drawing now, it shows that it is the cross section to help you so that you can click at that cross section point end enter to finish.

7 So you get completely parallel two lines with the same length.

Like the other modes you can also reach the settings for this mode by right clicking on the OTRACK;

2.3.5 POLAR (F10)

Polar is another good supporting mode while drawing. If you drew by hand at your previous career you definitely know that we had some rulers like 30, 90 45 degree;

Before CAD software you probably would use something like this to draw perfect 30 degree and we had 45-degree ones with these. And to draw another degree you needed to use one like this one;

You need to draw your horizontal line by pencil and mark the point where your angle is then you need to connect dots.

The POLAR completely works as these rulers for you.

1 Start by drawing a line but don’t finish by enter just make a second click and wait to draw continuous second line;

2 Here in this status, move your pointer 90 and 180 of the line you drew;

You will see that it is trying to help you with dashed lines at 90 and 180 degrees.

Here let’s do another trick. Finish this line with enter to start a new one.

1 Right click on POLAR;

Here you see set of angles. Here select 30 degrees.

2 And do the same as previous click to finish your first line and start second line; you will see now, other than 90 and 180 now nanoCAD helps you with also 30, 60, … degrees

So, the POLAR is the same as your 30, 60, 90 degrees triangle rulers. It helps you to draw lines with this angle. With the help of technology of course now you can also customize it to other angles as 5, 10 etc.

2.3.6 ORTHO (F8)

Ortho mode is again a restriction of your movement on the drawing environment. With ortho off you can place wherever you want for the second dot while drawing, but with ortho on you can only draw on the axis.

With ortho on;

With ortho off;

See that you can’t draw the second one with ortho on because it restricts you on the axis only. It is useful when you need to draw horizontal or vertical lines without clicking another place.

Ortho does not have any special setting you can only make it on and off.

2.3.7 SW

SW is used to hide the line weight or show it as original. You can give line weight to your lines. But before that we need to learn a little bit about properties bar.

2.3.7.1 Properties Bar

You will see this on your screen;

It is located under properties bar.

Here the first on the left is colour selection for your line.

If you click on it, it will give you various colour options. You may click these common colours, or you may create a specific one by clicking “more colours”.

It will open a colour selection window with more colours.

If you click on “true colour” tab you will see that you can create more specific colours defined by RGB or HSL. In RGB you need to define red, green and blue content of the colour or in HSL mode you need to select from hue, saturation and luminance. If you need a very specific colour from real life, you may use a colour picker app that can give these values so that you can enter here to get that specific colour.

The second one is line type where you can define it as dashed or continuous etc. But here you will see only one line type which is continuous at the start by default of the program.

To load more line type, use this way Format > Style >

There go to load linetype;

And select one of the .lin file here;

I chose ncad iso;

Here you need to select exactly which linetype you need to be visible with Ctrl+click and click ok;

You will see new linetypes are added to the linetype manager;

Click ok to continue. And click again the linetype box at the properties bar;

You will see now that various linetypes are possible to select.

So the last one is the line weight;

You can choose now colour, type and weight for your any line.

What the SW makes is to show without the line weight or with line weight.

So, if you right click the SW you will get to line weight settings dialogue box;

Here you can again define lineweight for your next lines, you can choose unit, choose default lineweight, and scale.

2.3.8 SH

SH is like SW is used to hide. It hides the hatchings. But before using this button you need to get info about what hatches are.

2.3.8.1 Hatching

To get working with hatching just draw a rectangular shape like this;

Next you can write the code “hatch” or click add hatch button at the draw bar;

So, it will get you to hatching dialogue window;

Here you can select how your hatch will look like.

You can define a pattern for your hatch; 

If you don’t know the description it is ok; you can just continue by clicking the three dots next to selection box and see them how they look like;

This one is better so that you can see before you apply it.

After that you can select colour and scale and angle that this pattern will be applied.

So, to show the program where to hatch you have two options under boundaries;

if you pick a point it will apply pattern automatically to the rectangle inside. I say inside because you can only apply hatch to the closed shapes. So, you need to click inside rectangle to hatch and it will change the colour of the object that inside will be hatched by changing its colour;

Then click enter. Then click ok.

You will get your object hatched.

TIP: REACH PROPERTIES FOR ANY OBJECT

Also, for any object on your screen you can play with its properties by right clicking on them.

So for hatch right click on hatch and select properties and  you will get the inspection windows opened on the left hand side of the screen;

Here you can also select the hatch specific items like colour, pattern etc. For every object this window will change to get its specific properties.