Object snaps: clicking exactly where you mean

Typed distances made your sizes exact. But drawings aren't just sized — they're connected: this wall starts exactly at that corner; this pipe meets the tank at its exact centre. Try clicking an exact corner by hand and you'll get close — which in CAD means wrong. Meet the tool that fixes clicking itself.

Object snaps: magnetic clicking

The snap types you'll use constantly:

Each shows its little green marker before you click — glance, confirm it's grabbing the point you mean, click with total confidence.

Setting them up (once)

Right-click the OSNAP icon in the status bar (or type OSNAP) → tick Endpoint, Midpoint, Center, Intersection, Perpendicular → OK. These five stay on for the rest of your CAD life. F3 toggles them all if they ever get in the way.

Feel the difference (2 minutes)

Open your room-practice.dwg:

1. 1L, Enter — hover near a corner of your room rectangle. See the green square appear? Click — your line starts at the EXACT corner.
2. 2Hover along a wall's middle — green triangle — click. Exact midpoint.
3. 3Draw a line from the desk's corner (endpoint snap) to the stool's centre (center snap). Two objects, now exactly connected.
4. 4Verify like a pro: DIST from the room's corner to your line's start = 0.0000. Exactly zero. That's connection.

Polar tracking: Ortho's smarter sibling

For now, Ortho covers you — file Polar away as "the angled version" for when Module 3's real drawings need it.

The precision mindset (the actual lesson)

Notice what's happened across two lessons: there is now no such thing as "approximately" anywhere in your toolkit.

• A size? Typed.
• A location on something? Snapped.
• A direction? Locked by Ortho.
• A doubt? Measured with DIST.

Professional drafters aren't more careful than you — their tools guarantee exactness, and they simply refuse to click without them. Adopt that refusal now, while your habits are wet cement: every click either lands on a snap or follows typed numbers. A drawing built that way can be trusted by a stranger with a saw — which is the entire job description.