3 

2   Getting started

2.1  What Is QCad?

QCad is a professional CAD System. With QCad you can easily construct and change drawings with ISO-texts and many other features and save them as DXF-files. These DXF-files are the interface to many CAD-systems such as AutoCAD« and many others.

QCad is available for the Linux operating system as well as for Windows 95, 98 and NT. The versions for Linux and for Windows are identically. However, the installation process differs. For that reason it was necessary to separate the installation chapter for the two operating system types.

2.2  What is QCad not?

QCad is no designer tool. That means you can not create any filled shapes nor any crazy freehand forms. Also you can not drag and drop the objects in the drawing with the mouse. If you're searching for such a tool you may take a look at KIllustrator (part of KOffice) or CorelDraw® from Corel, which comes out in the beginning of the year 2000 for Linux.

2.3  What Does It Look Like?

The following screen shot shows the main screen of QCad. Click on the image to see the full image. The screenshots in this manual are all taken under Linux using KDE. Therefore, the layout may differ from the one you see in your environment.

Main Screen of QCad

2.4  Where To Get QCad

You can download a personal version of the latest release of QCad directly from its homepage under http://www.qcad.org.

2.5  Installing QCad

2.5.1 System Requirements

Suggested:
Pentium Processor
16 MB RAM

Recommended:
Pentium Processor
32 MB RAM

2.5.2 Installing QCad For Windows

To install QCad for Windows you can simply extract the zip archive to your program directory and run QCad from there.

2.5.3 Installing QCad For Linux

To run QCad for Linux you need to have Linux installed on your computer. Further you need the Qt libraries version 2.x if you want to run a dynamically linked version of QCad. You can get the Qt libraries for free from your distribution CD or directly from Troll Tech.

Unpack The Archive

Copy the archive you've downloaded to /usr/local and unpack it, unless you already have:

cd /usr/local
gunzip qcad.tar.gz
tar xfv qcad.tar

This creates the directory /usr/local/qcad containing the files from the archive.

Creating A Startup Script

Create the file /usr/local/bin/qcad. The file should have the following contents:

#!/bin/sh
cd /usr/local/qcad/
./qcad

Make it executable with:

# chmod a+x qcad

From now on you can start QCad by typing qcad on a shell.

[  Contents  |  First Page  |  Previous Page  |  Home   | Next Page  |  Last Page  ]
[  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14  ]
Copyright © by Andrew Mustun 1999. All rights reserved.
This Manual was created with ManStyle.