Right-clicking one of these tabs presents a menu of common file-oriented commands. My favorite feature is the “document head,” those tabs that let me switch instantly between open drawings. (See figure 2.) While ZWCAD+ does not have workspaces, clicking the adjacent button lets me switch skin colors. I found that menus are always available in ribbon mode by clicking the Menu button in the upper right corner.

ZWCAD+ does come with toolbars, but they appeared when only I switched to Classic mode, which replaces the ribbon with the menu bar. (Because Autodesk uses the year+1 method for release numbers, the current version of AutoCAD is 2013 even though the current release of ZWCAD+ is 2012.) User Interface Compatibilityįigure 1: ZWCAD+ 2012 looks in many areas like AutoCADĪs you gaze around figure 1, you’ll find (clockwise from upper left) the application menu (under the big Z), quick access toolbar, ribbon, palettes, scroll bars, layout tabs, command prompt area, and a status bar that’s not quite a feature-packed as AutoCAD’s.įigure 2: Secret button for accessing menus in ribbon mode (See figure 1.) Indeed, ZWSOFT claims their software “has the closest user experience as AutoCAD, compared to alternative products.” Let’s take a look at how ZWCAD+ compares with AutoCAD in the areas of user interface, commands, drawing display, and customization. When AutoCAD users fire up ZWCAD, they will find it similar to that with which they are already familiar. ZWCAD+ is a cost-effective AutoCAD workalike. Today, its line of CAD software is sold by dealers in 80 countries to 320,000 customers.

More recently, the company release ZWCAD Mechanical, an add-on for doing 2D mechanical design. ZWSOFT renamed VX “ZW3D,” and then put it through an aggressive upgrade schedule. The company made in 2010 the surprising move of purchasing VX of Florida, USA, a firm best known for its CAM (computer-aided manufacturing) software. And so in 2012 they delivered ZWCAD+ 2012 – the ‘+’ indicating the new code base.Īll along, ZWSOFT emphasized ZWCAD’s compatibility with AutoCAD – the subject of this article. Like many other reasonably-priced CAD packages, ZWCAD was for a time based on IntelliCAD, but then the company rewrote the code to make it faster. ZWSOFT has been over the last decade working diligently to produce a respectable AutoCAD workalike.

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