Type the angle between two walls

Step by step

1. 1

   Tap an outside wall to see the angle at its corners

   Tap any outside wall. It turns blue, its bar (length, padlock, link, scissors, trash) appears beside it, and at each of its two corners the angle between it and the next wall shows in a small pill with a pencil. Square corners show 90° in green with the right-angle mark; any other angle shows in blue with an arc. The number is the inside angle, measured on the room side, the same number Layers → Show corner angles shows for every corner at once. So the inside corner of an L-shaped plan reads 270°, and a corner that leans in slightly reads something like 87°. On a phone or tablet the pills look and work the same; tap one to edit it.

   

2. 2

   Tap the angle, type the new one, tap ✓

   Tap the angle pill at the corner you want to change. It turns into a degrees box with a green ✓ and a grey ✕. The box opens with the current angle already selected, so just type the angle you measured, for example 93, and it replaces the old number. While you type, the wall's length bar, its end handles and the other corner's angle step out of the way, and on a phone the box stays fully on screen. You can type decimals too (92.5); a comma works as the decimal point. Tap ✓ (or press Enter on a computer) to apply it. Tapping elsewhere, or the phone keyboard's Done, also applies what you typed. ✕ or Esc leaves the corner as it was. Any angle from 1° to 359° can be typed. Above 180° makes that corner an inside (reflex) corner, as at the inner corner of an L.

   

3. 3

   What moves: the wall turns, the wall at its far end stretches

   The wall you selected turns around the corner you typed at, so that corner becomes exactly the angle you typed. The wall on the other side of that corner doesn't move at all. The selected wall's other end slides along the wall beyond it: that far wall keeps its direction and just gets longer or shorter, and the selected wall's own length changes as needed. Every other wall in the plan keeps its position and angle.

   In this 16 × 12 ft room, typing 93° at the bottom-right corner of the right wall gave:

   	Before	After
   Bottom-right corner	90°	93°
   Top-right corner	90°	87°
   Top wall (inside)	16′	16′ 7.55″
   Right wall	13′ 1″	13′ 1.22″
   Gross area	224 sq ft	228 sq ft

   The corner at the other end of the turned wall always changes by the same amount the other way (93° here, 87° there), because the angles of any four-sided room add up to 360°.

   Pick the corner that should stay put. If the front wall is the one you trust, select the side wall and type at the corner where it meets the front wall: the front wall never moves.

   Interior walls joined to the turned wall follow it when the wall's link is on (how outside walls start); see Move walls alone or together. Undo takes the whole change back in one step.

   

4. 4

   If the angle can't be applied, the note says why

   When an angle can't be applied, nothing changes and a short red note appears beside the corner: - A locked wall stops this angle. Unlock it first. One of the walls whose length would change has its length locked (the padlock on its bar, or next to Length in its panel). An amber note at the top adds That would change a locked wall length. To change it, select the wall and tap the padlock next to Length. Unlock it, or type the angle at the other corner if that wall should keep its length. - That angle would make the walls cross. The turned wall would never meet the wall beyond it, would cut across another wall, or would shrink a wall to nothing. Try a smaller change, or type at the other corner. - A curved wall's angle can't be changed. The wall is curved (a door-carved or arched wall); change its neighbour instead. In the picture the top wall's length is locked, so typing 93° at the bottom-right corner is refused: that angle would have made the top wall longer.

   

5. 5

   While drawing: start a wall at an angle to your plan

   The same boxes work while you draw new outside walls with Build → Exterior Wall (see Add exterior walls right on your plan). When you start on your plan, at a corner or part-way along an outside wall, the new wall shows its angle to the walls on both sides: - Started part-way along a wall, the two angles add up to 180° (90° + 90° for a wall straight out). - Started at a square corner of the plan, they add up to 270°. Tap either one and type the angle you want; the other adjusts so they still add up. Here 60 was typed on the right-hand side, so the new 6 ft wall leans out at 60° to the top wall and 120° on the other side. The new wall turns around its starting point and keeps its length. An angle that would point the wall into your plan is refused, since exterior walls only add floor.

   

6. 6

   While drawing: every length and corner angle stays editable

   Until you close the walls on your plan, nothing is final. Every wall you've drawn keeps its length pill, and every corner between two new walls keeps its angle pill (a pencil on each). Tap any of them and type: - A typed length changes that one wall; everything you drew after it moves along with it. - A typed angle (0° to 180° here, the angle between the two walls) turns everything drawn after that corner around it, keeping the side it turns to. So you can sketch the shape roughly first and then type the measurements in any order. The very first wall of a brand-new plan (Custom Floor Plan → Draw Your Own, or Add floor → Draw from scratch) shows its angle to the horizontal (0° for a level wall). Undo takes back each typed change, one at a time.

   

7. 7

   Finish on the plan: the angled extension is part of the house

   Pull the last + back onto an outside wall to close the new walls. The plan grows to take in the space (224 → 263 sq ft here), the new room gets its own label and measurements, and the stretch of the old wall now inside becomes an interior wall. The angles you typed are kept exactly. From here the new walls behave like any other outside wall: tap one and its corner angles show, ready to type. This is the quickest way to draw a bay, an angled porch or a wing that meets the house at something other than 90°.

   

8. 8

   Square a crooked corner: type 90

   A plan drawn by hand or traced from a photo often ends up with a corner at 87° or 101°. Tap the slanted wall and its corners show the problem at once: 101.3° and 78.7° here. Type 90 at one of them and the wall swings square; the opposite corner becomes 90° too, and the wall beyond it gets longer (the plan went from 110 to 120 sq ft, a true 12 × 10 ft room). To square every corner of an outline in one go, the Outline Editor's All 90° button is still there (Plan Settings → Layout → Outline Editor; see the Outline Editor). Typing the angle is better when only one corner is off, or when a corner really isn't square and you want its true angle.

   

9. 9

   The result: both corners at 90°

   After typing 90 at the 78.7° corner, both corners of the wall read 90° in green, the wall is 11′ 1″ long and square to its neighbours, and the plan is a true rectangle. Check the rest of the plan with Layers → Show corner angles, which marks every square corner in green and gives every other corner its number.

   

10. 10

    Measure the real angle of a corner

    To type a corner's angle you first need it from the real room. Three ways, from quickest to most precise:

    1. A digital angle finder (or a sliding bevel and a protractor): open its arms along the two walls at floor level and read the angle. Measure a few inches off the floor, above the baseboard.

    2. The triangle method, with only a tape measure. From the corner, measure the same distance along each wall (4 ft is easy) and mark both points. Then measure straight across between the two marks (the diagonal). The diagonal tells you the angle:

    Diagonal between marks 4 ft along each wall	Corner angle
    5′ 4.9″	85°
    5′ 6.7″	88°
    5′ 7.9″	90° (square)
    5′ 9.1″	92°
    5′ 9.6″	93°
    5′ 10.8″	95°
    7′ 4.7″	135°

    The formula behind it: with marks a and b along the walls and diagonal c, the angle is arccos((a² + b² − c²) ÷ 2ab). For a 90° check alone, the builder's 3-4-5 rule is quicker: marks at 3 ft and 4 ft should be exactly 5 ft apart.

    3. Lengths only. If you measured every wall and both diagonals of a four-sided room, typing the wall lengths and letting the plan close usually gets you within a degree; then read the corner angles off the plan and type the ones you measured directly.

    A degree matters more than it looks: over a 12 ft wall, 1° moves the far end about 2.5 inches.

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