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Drawing by typing is a good way to add lines of a given length or a given angle. For example, to place a line going west one mile, you’d just type “w1mi” without quotes. There’s no special place you need to type; PlatSketch just knows what you’re doing and shows you what you’ve typed at the bottom of the window. If you make any mistakes, you can use Backspace.

Typing a Command

1. You’ll first need to set the scale.
2. Now click to place the first point. You can add lines before typing as well.
3. Type one of the following directions: n, s, e, w, nw, ne, sw, se, or a. The letter “a” means custom angle.
4. If you typed “a”, you’ll need to follow it with the angle you want then the letter “d”. The angle is clockwise from north and goes from 0 to 359.
5. Now type the length as a number. You can use the decimal point if needed.
6. Here is where you can type the unit of length. You can use ft, m, mi, km, and px. The unit of length is optional. If you leave it off, it will draw with the unit of length used for the scale, so if the ratio is 1 inch to 200 feet, the program will assume you want to draw in feet.
7. Press Enter. To cancel instead, press Esc.

If the distance you type takes you outside the page, PlatSketch will tell you how far outside the page you are.

Here are a few example commands you could use.

• n1.5km — would go north 1.5 km
• a30d40 — would go 40 map's scale unit at an angle of 30 degrees (almost north-east)
• sw5m — would go southwest 5 meters
• a170d4mi — would go 4 miles at an angle of 170 degrees (almost south)
• ne3 — would go 3 map's scale unit going northeast