Drawing rectangles

A rectangle is created as a closed, four sided polyline.

A rectangle is drawn by specifying two opposite corners. Dynamic dimensions allow you to specify the width and height of the rectangle.

Unless the Rotated option is chosen, the sides of a rectangle are always parallel to the x-axis and y-axis of the current coordinate system (WCS or UCS).

The Rectangle tool is available on:

  • the Draw menu
  • the Draw toolbar
  • the Draw ribbon panel
  • the Draw tab of the No Selection Quad

General procedure

  1. Launch the RECTANG command.

    Prompts you:

    Select first corner of rectangle or [Chamfer/Fillet/Rotated/Square/Elevation/Thickness/Width of line/Area/Dimensions]:

  2. Specify a point.

    The rectangle displays dynamically.

    Prompts you: Other corner of rectangle:

  3. Do one of the following
    • Specify a point.
    • Type a value in the dynamic dimension fields.

      Press the TAB key to switch. Press Enter to confirm.

Note:

Because a rectangle is created as a closed polyline, rectangles have a direction. The direction of a closed polyline is positive if it is drawn counter-clockwise and negative if it is drawn in a clockwise direction. Rectangles have a counter-clockwise direction if both the X- and Y-coordinate of the second point are higher or lower than the coordinates of the first point (= movement of the cursor is positive or negative along both X- and Y-axis). Rectangles have a clock-wise direction if the X- or Y-coordinate is higher or lower than the X- or Y-coordinate of the first point (= movement of the cursor is positive along the X-axis and negative along the Y-axis or vice versa).

The Reverse Direction option of the PEDIT (Edit Polyline) command changes the direction of a polyline.