The RealCADD Manual Mac version
Welcome to RealCADD!

RealCADD is a richly-featured vector-based 2D Computer Aided Drawing (CAD) program, available for Mac, Windows and Linux, in French, German and English. It is a worthy successor to the much-loved but now obsolete Mac stalwarts such as MacDraw and ClarisCAD.

This manual is written for the Apple Mac version of RealCADD (in English). It is updated to version 5.11 released in December 2021.

Version 5.11 requires MacOS (Version 10.12 or better). It is a universal binary which will run on both Mac Intel and Mac M1 machines.

If you have an earlier OS, then you need to use RealCADD Version 4.80. There are two versions of this, one for Mac OS X version 10.6 and the other for Mac OS X better than 10.6

Similarly Version 5.11 for Windows requires Windows 10 or Windows 11; if you have earlier Windows you need to stay with 4.80. The Linux build has been tested on Mint Linux.

Note: The Mac windows etc. shown in these instructions are those for macOS 11.6 (Big Sur). Other Mac OS's may show slightly different versions, but the functionality is generally the same.

The right-hand part of the menu mimics the actual RealCADD menus, divided into sections as they are in RealCADD. Clicking a menu item will take you to its section and a description of its function and a discussion of its use.

Note that the Action menu is divided into two columns because of its length; on RealCADD it is a single column.

Menu items that have sub-menus in RealCADD will show the sub-menus as you hover over them and clicking them will similarly take you to the relevant section.

I hope that this RealCADD Manual will be a useful addition to the existing online documentation, especially for those who are new to a Mac CAD program, or in fact a CAD program on any platform. Though it is written for the Mac version, I hope it will also be useful for Windows and Linux users as well. Please remember though, that it is my personal take on the program ...

There is also a RealCADD Forum and users are encouraged to register and to post there.

Refer to Getting Started for a discussion about downloading and getting started with the different builds of RealCADD.

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Note for users of the Professional version of RealCADD: Up to version 4.40 RealCADD was available in two versions: Standard and Professional. Both versions allowed you to open DXF files and to save RealCADD files in DXF format. The Professional version of the program additionally allowed you to open DWG files, and to save RealCADD files in DWG format. Otherwise the two versions were the same.

As of version 4.50, the Professional version of RealCADD became no longer available. Existing users who started off with the Professional version are still be able to export to and import from DWG format. To enable this you need to do the following:

Download the latest RealCADD version (currently 5.11).
If necessary make a folder (in Applications) for the RealCADD app.
Navigate to your original 4.40 or earlier folder (usually in Applications).
In the RealCADD folder, right-click or ⌃-click (control-click) "RealCADD.app".
Select "Show package contents" from the ensuing drop-down menu.
Click the "Contents" folder to open it.
Click the MacOS folder to open it.
Select the "RCADtoDWG" file and drag it to your new RealCADD 5.11 folder.
The RCADtoDWG file can simply sit in the RealCADD folder – it doesn't need to go anywhere special. But it and "RealCADD.app" have to be in the same folder.

For future updates you can simply copy "RCADtoDWG" into the folder containing the new RealCADD app.

All versions of RealCADD can import DXF files and export RealCADD drawings to DXF files.