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Microspot MacDraft Professional Edition 5.6

Excellent 2-D Layout

Written by BG from Georgetown

Jul 9, 2009

I am subdividing land and building houses, and need top and side views done to scale. I am not an architect. At first, I tried ViaCad 2D/3D, which was cheaper and had full 3-D capability. However, ViaCad was so difficult to handle and to edit that I broke down and paid three times as much to get MacDraft Professional Edition, which is only 2-D. The change was worth it, as I can scale my drawings and make changes very easily. I make changes to plans very often, and my scale goes from lot subdivisions down to the size of blocks in a wall. I now use MacDraft exclusively, and no longer use ViaCad. The MacDraft scale drawings are good enough to submit to our city planners, although of course the official surveyor uses his own program.

MacDraft included a write-in to get a paper manual. I wrote in, and received the manual, which is very good. However, the manual is also on-line and I've used the on-line manual because I can get the information without getting out of my chair.

Summary: MacDraft is an excellent 2-D layout program, easy to scale, and easy to make changes - I make lots of changes! Well worth the high price.

15 of 16 people found this useful

Microspot MacDraft Professional Edition 5.6

Power and ease of use. Microspot got it right.

Written by RO from Manhattan Beach

Sep 19, 2008

After downloading the demo and experimenting a bit, I found MacDraft to be extremely easy to use. Simple and clean, I found its UI to be highly intuitive. After only one or two visits to the help menu, I was able to hit the ground running. Gladly, MacDraft employs the cursor buttons for "1-pixel" nudges, a must-have feature I've found oddly missing in some other apps.

At first, I was wary of the product after reading TG's review below. But after using the demo, I found that the dimension palette easily solves TG's first problem (this palette allows you to enter discrete values via the numeric pad). The latter issue TG describes is easily accommodated by using the application appropriately.

On my recent hunt for a decent OS X drawing application, I've tried just about every other OS X drawing demo available, and MacDraft wins hands down for ease of use. By the way, perhaps the biggest reason for choosing the "Professional Edition" over the "PE" edition (even for perhaps, casual users), is the pro edition's layers feature (there's no layering in PE). I also ordered the Microspot symbols libraries, and am very impressed with both the quality and quantity of the content contained in these very affordable libraries. Kudos to Microspot for going "overboard" with these!

If you're looking for an easy-to-use, competent drawing application, which features both dimensioning and layering capability, this is it!

84 of 86 people found this useful

Microspot MacDraft Professional Edition 5.6

This program is excellent

Written by AM from Lunenburg

May 11, 2008

I am an architect and have been a MacDraft user for over 20 years. It is an extremely hands on program; its like working on a drafting table. It is user friendly and has all of the tools that you need to draw any type of plan. I can draw a full set of buildable plans in 3 to 5 hours. The tool bar is self-explanatory and easy to learn. MacDraft also contains a drag and drop library program that makes creating plans a simple process. This program can be used for many other things, such as brochures, flyers, publications, etc. I could not live without this program. I highly recommend it.

134 of 152 people found this useful