Look It Up
Every control, A to Z
What each button, tool and panel is for, in a sentence, with the page behind it for the longer story.
Dato Rooms
Editing
- Action logEverything you have done this session, newest first, and a way back to any of it.
- ClipboardThe last few things you copied, with what’s in each and where it came from, before you paste one.
- CopyCopies the selected measurements. Paste puts them where you are looking; right-click and Paste here puts them exactly where you point. What you copy is a snapshot, so editing or deleting the original afterwards doesn’t change what gets pasted.
- PastePuts a copy on the page you’re on, where you are looking — by your pointer if it’s over the drawing, otherwise in the middle of what you can see. Never on a page you can’t see, and never off the edge of the paper. Pasting again cascades the copies so you can tell them apart.
- Paste in placePuts a copy at the exact coordinates it was copied from. This is how markup moves between revisions of one drawing: cloud an opening on P03, open P04, paste in place, and the cloud is over the same detail. If the page is a different size, you’re asked before anything happens.
- Place a copyCarries the copy on the cursor as an outline and puts it down where you click.
- Select all on this pageSelect every mark on the current page that you can see and edit.
Files
- Compare with another sheetPuts this page against another and finds the areas where the two look different.
- Export take-offWrites three tables: the bill, one line per take-off group; the working, every step of how each quantity was reached so it can be checked by hand; and the measurements the register is showing, with the page and the scale each was taken under. Quantities are recomputed as the file is written, so nothing in it can have drifted from the drawing.
Looking at the drawing
- ContentsWhat the drawing says is in it, and the places you have marked, as one list you can jump from.
- Dark sheetShows the white paper dark and the black lines light, hues kept. Only how it looks here: the file, exports, prints and measurements are unchanged. Settings, Appearance has the tone.
- Fit page widthFills the window across, so you scroll down a tall drawing.
- Fit whole pageSizes the sheet so all of it’s visible.
- GridA faint grid over the sheet for setting things out. On a sheet with a scale its spacing is real distance. Only an aid on the screen: not part of the drawing, never printed. Settings, Appearance has the spacing, style and snapping.
- LayersNamed sets of your own markup that you can show, hide and lock, independently of each other.
- Lock the panelsKeep every panel exactly where it is, so a stray click can’t drag one away.
- Margin lineA dashed line a set distance in from the edge of the paper. Only an aid on the screen. Settings, Appearance has the distance.
- Mark this spotNames where you are looking so you can come straight back to it.
- Navigation mapA small picture of the sheet with a frame where you are looking, shown while you’re zoomed in. Press on it or drag the frame to go there; Settings, Tools says when it shows and whose view it draws.
- Page brightness and contrastMake a pale scan or a sheet with a dark background easier to read: brightness, contrast, greyscale and invert, with the effect seen as you move the slider.
- Page thumbnailsShow or hide the page list down the side.
- Pages acrossShow two sheets side by side, as a spread: a plan beside its section, a detail beside the sheet it’s cut from.
- Panel layoutPut the pages, the properties, the register and the tools where they suit you: drag a panel's top strip to pull it out, drop it on any edge, or choose its place from the Panels menu.
- RegisterEvery measurement in the project as a sortable, searchable table. Click a row to jump to it on the drawing; pick one on the drawing and its row scrolls into view.
- Rotate leftTurns this page a quarter turn. Rotation is a way of looking, not an edit: what you measured is stored against the sheet itself, so no measurement, no markup and no quantity moves with it, and nothing is written to the file. Other pages stay as they are — use “Turn every page this way” for the whole set.
- Rotate rightTurns this page a quarter turn. Rotation is a way of looking, not an edit: what you measured is stored against the sheet itself, so no measurement, no markup and no quantity moves with it, and nothing is written to the file. Other pages stay as they are — use “Turn every page this way” for the whole set.
- ScrollingSwitch between scrolling continuously through every page and viewing one page at a time.
- Side viewA second sheet beside the drawing — another page of it, another open drawing, or any PDF — that scrolls and zooms with it.
- Straighten every pageClears every rotation, putting each page back the way the file has it.
- Straighten the page by two pointsClick two points along a line that should be level and the sheet is shown turned by the small angle that makes it so.
- Temporary measurementsA scratch pad. Measurements taken in this mode are drawn and read out normally, but are left out of every total and are cleared when you leave the page.
- ToolboxYour saved looks, marks, ways of measuring and words, in sets. Click one to use it; one search covers every set.
- Trim the marginsLooks at the sheet without the blank paper around it, so the drawing fills the screen. Nothing is written to the file.
- Turn every page this wayGives every page the rotation this one has. Drawing sets are often exported sideways as a whole, and turning forty sheets one at a time isn’t a feature.
- Zoom inCtrl and the mouse wheel zooms around the cursor, which is usually quicker.
- Zoom outCtrl and the mouse wheel zooms around the cursor, which is usually quicker.
Markup
- Give this look to other marksSelect one mark, choose this, then click other marks: each takes its colour, line weight, pattern, fill and size, wherever it can have them.
- Move the selectionPicks up whatever is selected and carries it on the cursor; click to put it down. Arrow keys move it by exact amounts, with or without the mouse.
Measuring
Pages
Panels
- ContentsWhat the drawing says is in it: the sheet list it carries and the places you have marked. Click a line to go there; type in the box to narrow a long list.
- GroupsThe lines of your bill. Make a group (like F101 Verge Flashing), pick it, then measure: everything you measure goes into it and adds up. Open a group to set waste or a multiplier, or to work out an order quantity.
- LayersNamed sets of your own markup that you can show, hide and lock, such as a consultant’s comments kept apart from your measuring. Hiding only changes what you see; nothing leaves your totals.
- PagesEvery sheet in the set as a picture. Click one to go to it. Drag a picture to reorder the set, or use the small buttons on it to move, turn or take a page out. “Add another PDF” joins more sheets on.
- Panel edgeDrag to resize the panel, or focus this edge and use the arrow keys — Shift for bigger steps, Home and End for either extreme. Right-click for sizes, or double-click to go back to the default.
- PropertiesEverything about what’s selected: its style, size and notes. With nothing selected, it tells you about the page and the drawing: scale, sheet size and rotation.
- RegisterEvery measurement in the project as a sortable, searchable table. Click a row to jump to it on the drawing; pick one on the drawing and its row scrolls into view.
Reading the drawing
- Link the sheetsFinds the callouts that name another sheet (a detail marker like 4/A-301, or “see A-301”) and turns them into links you can follow, and that are saved in the exported PDF as real links.
- Read the title blockReads the drawing number, title, scale, revision, status and the ISO 19650 drawing code from the sheet's own title block, and outlines every word it came from.
- Sheet indexLists the sheets of a set — drawing number, title, revision, status, date and scale — read from their own title blocks, and exports the list as a spreadsheet.
Review
Site signs
Take-off
- Quantities legendA table on the sheet that says what you measured: a colour and a name for each take-off group, with its total. It keeps itself up to date, and it goes out with the exported PDF.
- Take-off groupA named line in your bill that several measurements add up into.
- WasteAn allowance added on top of what you measured.
- Your ways of measuringA take-off group set up the way you like it — its kind, pitch, waste, colour and reference code — saved once and available on every job after that.
The program
- CommentsEverything said about this drawing, and what’s still open. A comment can be about the whole drawing, about a page, or pinned to a detail you have selected.
- Find in drawingFinds text anywhere in the drawing as you type. Every match is marked on the sheet; Enter steps to the next, Shift and Enter to the previous.
- Help & LearnWhat a tool is for, why you would use it, and a real example — in a panel beside the drawing rather than instead of it.
- PrintPut the marked-up drawing on paper, either at a scale you can measure off or fitted to the sheet for reading.
- Set up the toolsPuts the tools for one kind of work at the top of the rail.
The status bar
- Cursor positionWhere the cursor is on the sheet. Once the page is calibrated this reads in real-world coordinates instead.
- Display unitsQuantities are held in millimetres internally and converted only for display, so changing this never alters what was measured.
- Drawing intelligenceWhat this file can tell us: whether it carries searchable text, real lines it can read, layers, or only a picture of the drawing. Click to see the detail and the references found in the drawing.
- Drawing scaleThe scale this page is calibrated at. Until it’s calibrated, real-world quantities are refused rather than guessed. Click to calibrate.
- PageWhich page you’re on. Click to jump to another.
- Processed locallyDrawings are opened and drawn by your own browser, and a working copy is kept in this browser, on this device, so your work is there when you come back. Nothing is uploaded, unless you’re in a Dato Room: then the status bar says so, and what’s sent is sealed so the relay can’t read it.
- SavingWork is written to this device automatically, a second or so after each change. It says exactly what it has done — never 'Saved' before a save has finished.
- SnappingPicks land on something real: your own measurements first, then the drawing's own corners, line ends, midpoints and grid intersections. Hold Shift to constrain to an axis instead. Click to turn off.
- This page is turnedYou’re looking at this page rotated. It’s only a view: the file is untouched and every measurement is unchanged. Click for the rotation controls, including whether to keep rotations when the project is saved.
- Zoom100% is roughly the sheet's physical size on a typical display. Zoom never changes a measurement.
The top bar
- ExportProduces a finished file for somebody else — a marked-up PDF, or a take-off. An export is one-way: it’s never read back, so it can't be mistaken for your working file.
- Focus modeHides the side panels to give the drawing the whole window. Press F.
- InspectorShows what’s selected, what’s on this page, and how each quantity was arrived at.
- RedoPuts back the change you just undid.
- Save pointA named state you can come back to, kept on this device. Separate from the automatic save, which is always running anyway.
- SettingsUnits, precision, appearance, snapping, and the diagnostics that check the measurement engine against itself.
- UndoEvery change goes through one history, so this steps back through measuring, moving, editing and calibrating alike.
Tools
- AngleThree clicks: the end of one leg, the corner, then the end of the other.
- ArrowA line with a head on it. Click where it starts, then what it points at. The head goes on the end you finish at. Hold Ctrl (Option on a Mac) and either end lands beside the nearest text.
- Arrow (Polyline)An arrow that goes round things: click where it starts, click each bend, and finish on what it points at. The head is on the last point.
- Calibrate scalePick two points a known distance apart, then type that distance. Everything you measure afterwards uses it. A printed dimension makes the best reference, and a long one beats a short one.
- CountClick each item. The running total follows the cursor. Enter, or picking another tool, banks the count.
- Count every onePoint at one rooflight, vent or outlet and every other one drawn the same way is found, on this sheet or across the whole set, and shown to you before it’s counted.
- CutoutSubtracts an opening from an area you have already measured — a rooflight out of a roof, a window out of wall cladding. Select the area first. The opening must sit wholly inside it.
- DimensionTwo points and the distance between them, written on the sheet. It’s a LABEL, not a measurement — it never reaches your bill.
- Edit Existing TextClick words that are already on the drawing and type the new ones. They’re laid over the old on a patch the colour of the sheet under the words (white on a white page), in the same size of type.
- EllipseAn oval on the drawing. Drag out the box it sits in, or click two opposite corners.
- Fill an areaPoint at a roof plane, a bay or a room, and its area is taken from the lines already on the drawing instead of you tracing every corner.
- FreehandDraw by dragging, like a pen. The stroke is tidied when you let go: the same line, with the points nobody could see removed.
- HighlighterDrag across what matters. Hold Shift to keep the band straight along a line of text.
- LengthTwo clicks give a straight measurement. Snapping catches the drawing's own corners and line ends; hold Shift to force horizontal, vertical or 45 degrees.
- LineA straight line on the drawing. Click one end then the other, or drag. Hold Shift to keep it horizontal, vertical or at 45°.
- PanDrag to move around the sheet. You can also hold the space bar with any tool active, or drag with the middle mouse button.
- PerimeterClick around a boundary to measure the length the whole way round it, rather than the area it encloses.
- PolygonA closed shape with as many corners as you like. Click each corner; double-click or press Enter to close it.
- Polygon areaClick each corner of an irregular area. Double-click or press Enter to close it.
- PolylineA run of straight lines on the drawing. Click each change of direction; double-click or press Enter to finish. Backspace removes the last point.
- Polyline lengthClick each change of direction to measure a run that turns corners — a gutter, a flashing, a ridge. Double-click or press Enter to finish; Backspace removes the last point.
- Re-use previous toolFlips between the last two tools you used. Handy for dropping out to Select to fix something and getting straight back to measuring. The button shows the tool it will return to.
- RectangleA box on the drawing. Click one corner then the opposite one, or drag. Nothing here is measured — for that, use Rectangle area under Measure.
- Rectangle areaTwo opposite corners. The quickest way to take off anything square, which is most things.
- RedactClick a word, or drag a box over what’s to be removed. It blacks out the place at once; the words under it are deleted from the page when you press Redact now, in the bar at the bottom of the drawing.
- Revision cloudThe scalloped outline that says “this has changed”. Click around what changed; double-click or Enter to close it.
- Revision cloud (box)The same revision cloud, dragged as a box instead of clicked around. One gesture rather than four clicks and a double-click.
- SelectClick a measurement to select it, drag it to move it, or drag a corner handle to reshape it. Shift-click adds to the selection. Dragging on empty space draws a selection box: drag it left to right to take only what lies wholly inside, or right to left (a dashed box) to take anything it touches. Hold Shift to add to what’s already selected. Alt-click steps down through marks lying on top of one another, one layer per click. With the drawing focused, Tab and Shift+Tab step through the marks on the sheet in reading order.
- SignatureDraw your signature once, then put it on any drawing with a click.
- Site signsPick a sign (fire, access, hazards, protective equipment, welfare) and click on the plan to place it. Each gets its own number, such as FE-01. Routes and zones (vehicle and pedestrian routes, public areas, exclusion zones) are drawn the same way, and a live legend lists them all.
- StampPut the status of the sheet on the sheet: APPROVED, FOR CONSTRUCTION, SUPERSEDED, with the date it happened.
- TextClick where the words should start and type. Enter makes a new line, Escape abandons the note, and clicking anywhere else keeps it. Double-click a note later to change it.
- Text with LeaderWords with a leader that goes round things: click what it points at, click each bend, and finish where the words should go, then type.
- Trim the viewDrag the edges to choose which part of the sheet to look at. Enter keeps it, Escape puts it back.
Written for DatoMark 0.1.1-trial.1. These pages are made from the same words as Help inside the program, so the two cannot disagree.