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Protractor

Lay a guide line at an angle.

No letter of its own - /protractor, or /angle, or pick it from MORE TOOLS.

How to use it

  1. Click the corner the angle turns about.
  2. Click a point to measure the angle from - along an edge is easiest.
  3. Swing round and click, or type the angle and press Enter.

It leaves a guide line at that angle. Draw against it, then rub it out.

Three clicks - the corner, along one arm, round to the other - and a dashed guide is left lying at the measured angle.
The corner, then along the flat arm - that is the nought it measures from - then round to the sloping one. The bar reads the angle as it swings, and what is left behind is a dashed guide lying at it.

Typing the angle

Which plane it turns in

The arrow keys pick it before you start, and the color of the protractor says which - left or right for upright, up or down for flat. Without that it uses whatever plane your three points happened to lie in.

Worth knowing

To erase the guide it leaves, take the tape and right-click the guide - Erase This Guide Line - or right-click anywhere and choose Clear Guides to be rid of the lot. See the tape measure for the rest of what guides do.

What it is good for

A roof, mainly. Click the corner of the wall, click along the top of it, then type 8:12 - and the guide is the rafter line, with none of the arithmetic yours. The same trick lays out a splayed leg, a hopper, or anything else where the drawing gives you a slope rather than an angle.

It measures as well as lays out: swing to something already drawn and the bar reads the angle without you having to leave a guide behind at all.

See also