Main Settings

ConceptDraw Project gives you flexibility in working with the documents: you can select and modify both the global application settings (used by default and applied to every new document) and specify the custom settings for any particular document.

Application Settings. Preferences

Global program configuration can be set in the Preferences dialog. In this dialogue you can set up paths to various resources of the program, and place the used Internet browser and other settings. To call the dialog, select Preferences from the Edit menu.

Ctrl+"*" Cmd+"*"

The Preferences dialog has a few tabs responsible for groups of parameters: Default, File Paths, Internet, Miscellaneous and Coding(only for Mac OS ).

The File Paths tab sets up paths to ConceptDraw Project components: documents, help system.

To set a path, use the Browse button or type the path in the corresponding field. When you call the File/Open dialog for documents, templates or libraries first time after the application started, the dialog displays the content of the respective default folder. Later, the File/Open dialog displays the current folder for each file type.

In the Internet tab the path to the Internet-browser used by the program for going to hyperlinks and search in the Internet is displayed.

At installing the program this path corresponds the default Internet-browser. However, if for any reasons, it has been made incorrectly, you can specify other program for searching Web-sites.

In this tab you can also specify the search system which will be used for your search in the Internet.

The Coding tab allows to set up coding for the text so that the text in the documents created by a Mac OS was normally displayed in the version of the program for Windows. Select coding corresponding to your language from the list.

Click OK for saving changed options.

Manipulating Toolbars

There are a few toolbars in ConceptDraw Project. Tools in them are grouped according to their functions. ConceptDraw Project allows you to control the arrangement of toolbars for convenience of working. Toolbars can be attached to the top or bottom part of the screen, or they are docked in any place of the screen as floating toolbars.

To move a toolbar, place the mouse pointer at a vertical line in the left part of the toolbar, or at a separator between icons, and drag it to a desirable place.

You can disable unnecessary toolbars or temporarily hide them to save the screen space.

To show/hide a toolbar, use the Toolbars submenu of the from the View menu, or call a shortcut menu on the toolbar. If the flag near to the name of the panel is set, this toolbar will be displayed on the screen.

Even if the panel is hidden, in most cases its tools and commands can be called from the main menu. It is possible You may use keyboard combinations for this purpose frequently. (See Appendix A: Keyboard Shortcuts and Mouse Actions). The toolbars can be positioned vertically (as it is convenient, for example, for drawing tools) or horizontally.

In the Windows version toolbars can be docked on edges of an application window.

The Mac OS version allows to position toolbars horizontally or vertically in their any status. It can be made in the Shortcut menu.

To specify the properties for several or all the toolbars simultaneously use the Toolbars dialog (from the View/Toolbars/Customize menu)

Note: The toolbar settings are saved when you quit the application.

Manipulating Windows

ConceptDraw Project opens each project in a separate window. It is also possible to open several windows for working with the same project (e.g. if you need to see several pages simultaneously, or view pages with different zooming).

To open a new window for the active project, select the New Window command from the Window menu.

To close an active window, you can:

Note 1:To close all the windows together quickly, select the Close All command from the Window menu.

Note 2:The Close command from the File menu can be used to close an active window together with all the other windows in which the same document is displayed.

To switch between the open windows, you can use the Window menu. It holds the list of open windows and the documents displayed in them. The tick marks the active window. To switch to another window, it should be selected in the list.

If the number of open windows exceeds 9, and the required window is not displayed in the Window menu list, click the More Windows item. The Select Window dialog will appear. It has the complete list of all open windows (the active one is shown selected). You can select the required window in the list and click OK to make it active.

ConceptDraw lets you switch between all open windows quickly, activating them in series one by one.

To activate the next window (in a cycle according to the list), you can use the following key combinations:

Ctrl+F6,Ctrl+Tab

or use the Following command from the Window menu (see an icon to the left of the File menu).

Note: You can also use the Window menu commands to arrange the open windows automatically:

In the MacOS system each window has its own number (e.g. if you open 5 windows, they will get numbers from 1 to 5). You can activate a window by pressing its number key together with the Cmd key.

Printing Setup

In ConceptDraw, printing parameters can be global (i.e., to be applied to every printed project by default), or local for a particular document.

To make or change the global settings, use the File/Page Setup command from the File menu. In the Page Setup dialog that appeared you can set the print page size and orientation and some other printer parameters.

To specify printing settings for a particular document, activate it and call the File/Document Properties dialog from the File menu . In the Printing tab of the dialog, you can set paper orientation, assign paper positioning if the document page size is bigger or less than a print page. This tab also contains the Fit to Size section to let you fit the document page to the given number of the pages while printing.

See details in the Developing Projects - Printing section.