Copy a whole section with Copy
Lift a whole detail, reinforcement, stirrups and all, and stamp it down again.
- 1
Pick Copy in the tool rail
Ctrl+C takes one thing at a time. Copy takes everything inside a box in one go, which is what you want when a whole footing is to be repeated.
Worth knowing. The scale has to be set on the drawing first.
- 2
Frame the section
Drag a box around what you want to copy. The panel tells you what you got, for instance 4 reinforcement · 6 stirrups.
- 3
Take whole things
Only what lies ENTIRELY inside the box comes along. If a run is half outside it is left out, and the panel says how many fell away.
Worth knowing. That is deliberate. Half a stretch coming along would add a quantity you never drew, and a quantity too many does not show on screen. A missing one does.
- 4
Click to place it
The section now follows the cursor. Click where it is to lie. It stays on the clipboard, so you can click again for the next one.
Worth knowing. If the copy lands near something you have already drawn it hooks onto it, so a repeated footing goes edge to edge.
- 5
Rotate after you have placed it
Switch to Select, click the copy and drag a corner handle, or press R. So the rotating happens to what is on the drawing, not to what is floating.
- 6
Put the copy down
Press Esc, or Put it down in the panel. Change tool and it disappears from the cursor as well, but it stays on the clipboard, so both Ctrl+V and going back to Copy work.
- 7
Save the detail as a template
Press Save as template and give it a name, for instance Standard footing 600. It turns up under Saved templates and stays there for the whole workspace: on every drawing, in every project.
Worth knowing. Templates are saved in metres, not in pixels. That is why a template also fits a drawing at a different scale, and why it holds even if you reset the scale on the drawing it came from.
- 8
Know what does not come along
Insulation and mesh are not copied, because each one is ordered on its own area and a stamped copy would double the delivery. What you have hidden with Hide does not come along either.
- 9
Do not copy across a viewport edge
If the selection lies partly inside a viewport with a scale of its own, no copy is made. Frame inside or outside the viewport, otherwise one end of the detail would come out a different size from the other.
Next steps
- Copy, paste and rotateDraw a detail once and use it again, without the measurements changing.5 min
- Set the scale on the drawingTeach the tool how long a metre is on the paper, so every length you draw comes out right.5 min
- Draw stirrupsSet stirrup type, measurements and centres, and the number and the length of steel are worked out for you.6 min
Do the steps on a real drawing
Open the tool and follow the walkthrough on the sample drawing that is already there. No login needed.
Open the toolStuck on a step? Get in touch and we will gladly look at your drawing.