Toolbar Explained

PatchCAD’s toolbar is designed to present all the necessary tools and commonly used functions in one are for easy access and arranged in a logical order. In addition to the sectional separation of common tasks, the toolbar provides a quick feedback as to the state of the selected patchbay cell or cells.

PatchCAD Toolbar

PatchCAD’s toolbar, divided into sections by function and task.

Project Management

PatchCAD Icon - New Project

New Project

Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+N

Click here to start a new empty project. Patchbays must be added to a project. Most toolbar buttons will not be enabled while a new project hasn’t been created or an existing one hasn’t been opened.

When pressed, a window will appear asking for optional description of the project including client’s name, contact details, revision and notes.

PatchCAD Project Settings Window

PatchCAD Icon - Project Properties

Project Properties

Opens a window with the project’s properties. Here you can enter the project’s name, location, client’s contact details, revision and notes.

PatchCAD Icon - Print

Print

Shortcut: Ctrl+P

When at least one patchbay is present in the project, the Print button is enabled. Pressing it will open the print preview and settings window where you can choose which pages to print, choose which cutting guides to print and which printer to print to.

PatchCAD Icon - Settings

Settings

Opens PatchCAD’s global settings including units of measure for custom patchbay designs (mm/inches) and default preview window colours.

PatchCAD Settings Window

PatchCAD Icon - Open and Save

Open, Save and Save As

Shortcut: Ctrl+O
Open an existing project

Shortcut: Ctrl+S
Save current project. If current project is an existing file, pressing save will overwrite it.

Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+S
Save current project to a different file than the current one and make the new file the current open project file.

PatchCAD Icon - Copy and Paste

Copy, Cut, Paste and Paste Without Formatting

Shortcut: Ctrl+C
Copy existing selection to the clipboard.

Shortcut: Ctrl+X
Copy existing selection to the clipboard and erase current selection from the patchbay.

Shortcut: Ctrl+V
Paste current clipboard content to the currently selected area. If the clipboard area is larger than the current selection or would overflow the patchbay size, an error message will appear and the paste operation will be cancelled.

Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+V
Paste current clipboard content without the original formatting (just the content of the cell) to the currently selected area. If the clipboard area is larger than the current selection or would overflow the patchbay size, an error message will appear and the paste operation will be cancelled.

Text Formatting

Change the font and size of the selected cell by selecting a font name from the dropdown list, and either selecting the font size from the dropdown line or pressing the Plus and Minus buttons to enlarge or reduce the font size respectively. You can also use the shortcuts Ctrl+] and Ctrl+[ to enlarge and reduce the font size respectively.

Use the Ha > A and A > a buttons to capitalise the text, change all the letters to upper case and change all the letters to lower case respectively.

Use the BI, U and S buttons to make the selected cells’ text bold, italic, underlined and/or struck out. For bold, italic and underline, you can also use the shortcuts Ctrl+BCtrl+I and Ctrl+U respectively.

Auto Content, Colours and Normalling

PatchCAD Icon - Auto Number

Auto Number

Shortcut: Ctrl+9
Available only when a selection span no more than one row, pressing the Auto Number button will automatically fill the content of the selected cells with numbers from 1 until however many cells are selected, incrementing by one.

PatchCAD Icon - Auto Number

Auto Letter

Shortcut: Ctrl+0
Available only when a selection span no more than one row, pressing the Auto Letter button will automatically fill the content of the selected cells with letters from A to Z filling all the selected cells. When Z is reached but more letters are required, PatchCAD will continue filling the cells with double-letter content from AA to ZZ and so on.

PatchCAD Icon - Auto Parallel

Auto Parallel

When more than one cell is selected across one row, the Auto Parallel button becomes available. Pressing it will mark the selected cell with a traditional markings of a parallel split. Often used in audio patchbays, the marks suggest that feeding a signal to any one of the marked sockets will split the same signal across all the marked sockets in the group.

PatchCAD Icon - Special Symbol

Special Symbol

Pressing the Special Symbol button will bring up a window with a list of common special symbols that are not present on the keyboard but are often used for special markings. Selecting any symbol will insert it into the cell overwriting its existing content.

PatchCAD Icon - Auto Complete

Auto Complete

Shortcut: Ctrl+8
When a selection is made across a single row of cells, the Auto Complete button becomes available. Pressing it will automatically continue the numbering or lettering of the first cell in the selection range but will preserve any prefix labelling. For example, if eight cells in a row are selected, and the first cell contains “Mic A”, pressing Auto Complete will fill in the remaining cells with the labels “Mic B”, “Mic C” and so on.

Unlike the Auto Numbering and Auto Lettering buttons, Auto Complete will not start from the number 1 or the letter A but will rather continue from the number or letter in the first cell. This is useful for continuing a numeration that might have been interrupted or starts from the middle.

PatchCAD Icon - Text Colour

Text Colour

Set the colour of the selected cells’ text.

PatchCAD Icon - Back Colour

Background Colour

Set the colour of the selected cells’ background.

PatchCAD Icon - Border Colour

Border Colour

Set the colour of the border. Selecting a colour from the drop down list will affect all newly created borders. Pressing the colour button will change the colour of all existing borders in the current selection to the chosen colour.

PatchCAD Icon - Fully Normalled

Fully Normalled

Shortcut: Ctrl+1
When a patchbay has more than one row, a special mark can be made in between the first two rows to indicate the columns normalling setting. Pressing the Fully Normalled button will draw an up and down arrow between the rows of the “columns” of the selected cells to indicate that the top end bottom sockets are fully normalled.

PatchCAD Icon - Half Normalled

Half Normalled

Shortcut: Ctrl+2
When a patchbay has more than one row, a special mark can be made in between the first two rows to indicate the columns normalling setting. Pressing the Half Normalled button will draw a down arrow between the rows of the “columns” of the selected cells to indicate that the top row is half normalled to the bottom row.

PatchCAD Icon - Parallel Normalled

Parallel Normalled

Shortcut: Ctrl+3
When a patchbay has more than one row, a special mark can be made in between the first two rows to indicate the columns normalling setting. Pressing the Parallel Normalled button will draw two parallel lines between the rows of the “columns” of the selected cells to indicate that the top and bottom sockets of said column are parallel normalled.

PatchCAD Icon - Not Normalled

Not Normalled

Shortcut: Ctrl+4
When a patchbay has more than one row, a special mark can be made in between the first two rows to indicate the columns normalling setting. Pressing the Not Normalled button will remove any normalling markings between the rows of the “columns” of the selected cells to indicate that the top and bottom sockets have no normalling relationship.

PatchCAD Icon - Clear Formatting

Clear Formatting

Pressing the Clear Formatting button will reset any text or style formatting of the selected cells but will preserve their content. The cells’ text will be returned to the plain unformatted text, colours will be cleared and borders removed.

Borders and Cells

PatchCAD Icon - Merge Cells

Merge Cells

Shortcut: Ctrl+J
Pressing the Merge Cells button will join the selected cells into one consecutive cell like in a spreadsheet.

PatchCAD Icon - Unmerge Cells

Unmerge Cells

Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+J
Pressing the Unmerge Cells button will disjoin the selected cell or cells into their original individual member cells.

PatchCAD Icon - Unmerge Cells

All Borders

Shortcut: Ctrl+D
Pressing the All Borders button will toggle between enabling and removing an outer solid black border around the selected cells on all sides.

PatchCAD Icon - Unmerge Cells

Individual Borders

Pressing the individual border buttons will toggle their respective borders around the outside of the selected cell range.

Preview and Export

PatchCAD Icon - Reset Zoom

Reset Zoom

Reset the preview window zoom to default 1:1. In this state, the size of the preview on the screen should match the designation strip size in real life.

PatchCAD Icon - Zoom Out

Zoom Out

Shortcut: Ctrl+Minus
Zoom out the preview window by 10%

PatchCAD Icon - Zoom Out

Zoom In

Shortcut: Ctrl+Plus
Zoom in the preview window by 10%

PatchCAD Icon - Export as Image

Export as Image

Export the preview as an image. Pressing the Export as Image button will present a list of all patchbays in the project. Uncheck the pachbays you do not wish to include in the exported image. You can export the image in PNG, JPEG, GIF, BMP or TIFF format.

Please note: The image size of the exported image will be the same as the size of the preview. Use the zoom buttons to enlarge or reduce the export image size.

PatchCAD Icon - Export as Excel

Export as Excel

Export the patchbay or patchbays to an Excel format file. Pressing the Export as Excel button will present a list of all patchbays in the project. Uncheck the pachbays you do not wish to include in the exported Excel file.

Please note: Because each patchbay in the project could be of different dimensions and layout, each patchbay will appear in a separate worksheet in the Excel workbook. Also, due to the nature of Excel’s handling of size, it is not possible to export the patchbays into Excel and preserve the real-world dimensions. 

PatchCAD Icon - Export as PDF

Export as PDF

Export the patchbay or patchbays as a PDF file. Pressing the Export as PDF button will present a list of all patchbays in the project. Uncheck the pachbays you do not wish to include in the PDF file.

Please note: The image size of the exported image will be the same as the size of the preview. Use the zoom buttons to enlarge or reduce the export image size. This export is not meant for printing purposes. The resolution of the PDF export is not adequate for printing but is rather meant for online publishing or sharing.

PatchCAD Icon - Preview On/Off

Preview On/Off

Shortcut: F10
Toggles preview panel on/off. Turn preview off if you are using a laptop with a smaller screen for a larger editor area real-estate.

System

PatchCAD Icon - Check for Updates

Check for Updates

Check for updates online. If a new version of PatchCAD is available, you will be asked if you’d like to download the new version. When the new version has finished downloading, PatchCAD will close and the downloaded installer will be shown in Windows Explorer. Please launch the installer to install the new version of PatchCAD.

Please note: PatchCAD checks for an available version at launch if an Internet connection is available.

PatchCAD Icon - Shortcuts

Shortcuts Window

Shortcut: F8
Toggles shortcuts window on and off. When pressed, a list of PatchCAD keyboard shortcuts will hover above the main PatchCAD window.

PatchCAD Icon - About PatchCAD

About PatchCAD

Shows the About PatchCAD window which includes the version details and change log information.

PatchCAD Icon - Help and Support

Help and Support

Opens the PatchCAD website’s support page in the default browser.

PatchCAD Icon - PatchCAD Website

PatchCAD Website

Opens the PatchCAD website in the default browser.

PatchCAD Icon - Close PatchCAD

Close PatchCAD

Exit PatchCAD. If a project is open, a confirmation window will open before closing.

PatchCAD Logo

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