Question

How can I pan or scroll in the drawing window?

Requirements

PowerCADD v6
PowerCADD v7 and Mac OS^? X Tiger (10.4.4) or newer recommended

Discussion

Panning or Scrolling in a drawing window is the other side of the general drawing navigation coin (zooming in or out being the flip side of that coin). Here, in no particular order, are the methods available for panning (or scrolling) in a PowerCADD drawing (please reference the PDF^? or printed manuals for specific, step by step, instructions on using these methods):

(1) Pan Tool:
In the first row of the tool palette, choose the Pan Tool then press and drag in the drawing window to 'move the paper' so you can see the desired area. This has been a Mac OS standard for decades and is available in various drawing applications.

(2) Interactive Pan:
Similar to the Pan Tool only it goes to the next logical level! With any drawing tool selected, simply press the Space Bar. The cursor will change to the 'grab hand' - press and drag to pan - release the Space Bar and you're drawing tool is still active - how cool is that!

(3) Scroll Arrows:
Click on a scroll arrow will move you up, down, left or right one line depending on which arrow you press (again, this is a Mac OS standard but it's so common sense it's too easy to miss, especially for new users or Windows / AutoCad converts). Of course there are some creative twists that make this feature even more useful. If you'd like to tweak performance, choose PowerCADD menu > Preferences > View and specify a smaller or larger number in the Line Scroll field. The Mac OS typically allows users to put scroll arrows at the top or grouped together at only the bottom - however - did you know you can also specify 'double scroll arrows' at both the top/bottom/left/right of the drawing window? That's right - here's a screen shot of how they look. The amount of mousing around this saves is significant!

(4) Scroll Up/Down/Left/Right
You can assign custom key commands which perform the same task as clicking on an up/down/left/right scroll arrow. Choose PowerCADD menu > Preferences > Commands > Miscellaneous and assign a key command to Scroll Up, Scroll Down, Scroll Left or Scroll Right.

5) Scroll Bars
Press and drag on a scroll bar (vertical or horizontal) to reveal a different portion of the drawing area. Again this is a Mac OS standard which can be customized in PowerCADD to help you optimize performance for your particular hardware configuration. Choose PowerCADD menu > Preferences > View and specify a smaller or larger number in the Page Scroll field. (see previous image)

(6) Area Between Scroll Bars and Scroll Arrows
Here is yet another Mac OS golden oldie method of navigation. If you click in the grey area between a scroll bar and a scroll arrow, you will advance height or width of the drawing window. This can be a great way to surf around a drawing, one drawing window 'tile' at a time. Think of this as moving 'one page' at a time where a page is defined as what you can see in the drawing window (remember, the drawing window can be any size and this feature will behave consistently with respect to that size).

(7) Page Up/Down/Left/Right arrows
There are key commands which are also available to move one drawing window at time in the direction specified by the arrow. This has the same effect as clicking in the grey area between scroll bars and scroll arrows described earlier. The default key commands assigned are Shift + [the arrow key] where [the arrow key] is left, right, up or down as shown on the keyboard. Like all other PowerCADD key commands, you may also assign your own custom values by choosing PowerCADD menu > Preferences > Commands > Miscellaneous and choosing Page Up, Page Down, Page Left or Page Right.

(8 ) Auto Scroll
When dragging to draw or move an object, the screen will automatically scroll when your mouse collides with an invisible barrier on all sides of the drawing window. If you are having a difficult time getting this feature to work correctly, choose PowerCADD menu > Preferences > General and uncheck the box next to Drag and Drop Enabled. There is a fine line between wanting to drag and drop information out of the drawing window and wanting to enable auto scroll and early versions of PowerCADD v6 had a smaller 'sweet spot'. We recommend making sure you have the latest version of PowerCADD v6 to ensure the drag and drop verses auto scroll interface is working correctly.

(9) Overview Window
Press and drag on the red zoom rectangle in the Overview Window to move it. As the red zoom rectangle moves the main drawing window is updated.

In addition to the zooming techniques described in our related article and panning/scrolling, Sheet Setups (Layout menu > Sheets) and Saved Views (View menu > Views and View menu > Store Views) are also excellent means of further optimizing your drawing navigation. We hope that's helpful and gives you a few ideas on how you can navigate your drawings quickly and easily. Remember, there isn't any single method that will work for every drawing situation so practice them all and before you know it they'll become second nature.

We hope that helps
caddpower.com

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