including all steps to start from scratch!

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When you open ArchiCAD, a dialog box opens. On top, you can choose Create a New

Project to open a new project and Open a Project to open an existing one made.

In this case, let's create a new project, going to New at the bottom.

The project has a simple workspace: on top there is the Standard bar, with some

important tools; on the left the Toolbox, that collects all to build your CAD

project; and on the right the Navigator palette, that collects all you have

inside your project.

Each of these palettes can be moved and closed. To open them back, simply go to

Window, Toolbars or Palettes and tick on what you need. Double-click to place

a palette back in position.

Let's see the basic 2D tools inside ArchiCAD. Your central workspace is composed

by a grid with four main Elevations. Don't worry about these, since those are

used for 3D projects only.

All tools to build 2D projects are inside the Document section on the left.

You can draw segments with Line, curves and circles with Arc/Circle or a mix

between straight and curved lines with Polyline.

For example, to draw a Line, you must start from a point, called starting point,

fixed by clicking on your workspace. This will be indicated as a bold cross.

A preview of the object's shape is shown with a dialog box indicating distance

and angle respect to the horizontal direction, or X axis, indicated by a dotted

line. When you fix the second point, the segment is done.

With Arc/Circle you need to fix three points: one for the centre, one for the

radius (or Distance) and the third one for the arc length.

The Polyline tool creates a polyline with segments and arcs, one following

the other. You can choose between the two through the drawing tools appearing.

To finish drawing, just click on the lastest cross, when the pencil becomes

black.

In case you mistake while drawing, use Escape key to undo everything. To undo

mistaken actions, use CTRL+Z instead.

Very important are the visualization tools, used to check your project carefully.

To zoom in and out, use your mouse wheel. You can check the zoom percentage

at the bottom. You can use the Pan Tool to move around, just click once to move

and click again to finish with it.

Through the Document section you can also add some text and labels in your

project. To add Text, click on the Text Tool and click and drag on your project

to define a text area, that will contain your text inside. Once done, simply

type inside, setting font, style and text size through the dialog box above.

Remember to select the piece of text interested to apply the changes.

Mind that the text area does fix the space reserved for text. If you overcome

it, more rows will be added. Click outside to apply. In case you want to edit

text in the future, enable the Arrow tool in the Toolbox and double-click on it.

Each tool has its own settings, all listed in the Info box on top. For example,

in the Text tool, you can choose the Text properties. In the Line tool you can

choose to draw following just the horizontal and the vertical directions, or the

line style. For all the list of properties, simply click on the button inside

Default Settings.

ArchiCAD does help you while you draw. For example, nodes and vertices are

represented through checkmarks; points on paths through a star, and segment

medians through an horizontal mark.

New in ArchiCAD 19 is the ability to draw tangent, perpendicular or among the

same direction of one or more elements. All you need to do is to hover the

object's path until this is completely highlighted in blue. Then you can draw

very easily a line perpendicular, tangent or following certain directions. Those

blue lines are called Guides. You can remove all those using Escape key. Those

lines are never rendered in your final project of course.

In case you need to be more precise, you can use your keyboard. While you draw,

you can type numbers in the blue dialog box to fix the object properties

directly. Use the Up and the Down Arrow keys to select which property. The X,Y

and Z Coordinates do fix the position of the current point. Use Enter key to

apply. These numbers use the measurement unit chosen in the options of ArchiCAD,

that you can set through Options, Project Preferences, Working Units...

Let's see how to manage objects made. To manage and edit them you need to enable

the Arrow Tool, the first tool under Select section. This is used to select

which objects to edit. Click on one object to select it. This will be highlighted

in green with all its black nodes. Then, if you click on the objects path or

node, you will edit such object through the small dialog box that appears,

changing distance, radius and so on.

Let's see the most important editing tools. The Drag tool is used to move the

selected object around the workspace. Rotate is used to rotate the object, just

define the rotation point and the angle. Mirror mirrors the object. Multiply

is used to create arrays of the same object as a single element.

Plus, depending on the kind of object selected and on the node, the list of

editing tools changes. If you click on any path, you can add new nodes, curve

the side or offset edges. You can even stretch the radius if it is a circle or

an arc path. If you click on a node, you can move it through Move node, or

stretch the side or the arc length. Remember to use Escape key if you want to

undo.

You can also select more objects to edit them all together, just click on each

object and hold Shift down. Use Escape key to deselect.

If you right-click on a selected object, you can cut, copy, paste and delete it.

In case you have complex projects, you may need to move lots of objects. In

this case enable the Marquee tool, click once and drag to create a selection

area. Then click on one object and move. All objects inside such area will be

moved together.

When your project is finished, just save it. Just go to File and then to

Save As... At the bottom, you can choose different file formats. Choose ArchiCAD

Solo Project to open the project again later to edit it back, with a .pln file

format. You can also save it as a .pdf file in order to print it. This will

follow the Page and the Document options you can open through the two buttons

above.

You can also save all as .jpg image: this will simply contain all your whole

project, including its elevations as a simple image.

You can also choose what to export using the Marquee Tool. This simply selects

which part of the project you want to be exported.

In the future, use Save or CTRL+S to save often.

This is all! Check out our full guide to learn more for ArchiCAD 19!!