Create Rectangular/Square Area

The Create Rectangular/ Square area features tool is designed for creating Rectangular/ Square features. The default shape is a rectangle, and holding down the SHIFT key will force the dragged shape to be square.

This option is available as a button on the Digitizer Toolset, or in the Digitizer menu or context menu under Create Area/Polygon Features.

Left click to start the rectangle, then left-click again at the end of the first side, then left click again when the rectangle shape is completed to create it. Once the shape is finished, release the left mouse button and the Modify Feature Info dialog will appear allowing you to setup the label, classification, drawing style, and attribution for the new feature. See Editing Feature Attributes and Drawing Styles for more details.

Hold down the 'T' key when left clicking to start the shape, the start point will be treated as the center of the shape feature rather than the top left corner of the feature .

Once the shape is completed, the Digitizer Tool will remain in the selected shape creation mode.  Left-click to start drawing a new shape, or right-click to choose a different mode.

Keyboard Shortcuts

• SHIFT - Create a square rather than a rectangle
• T - Hold down this key to use the start location as the center of the shape, rather than the top left corner
• ALT - modifier with left-click to disable automatic snapping behavior
• V - Modifier with left-click to only snap to existing vertices
• ESC - Cancel feature creation

Create Rectangular/ Square Line

To create a line feature rather than an area feature, find the Create Rectangular / Square Line option from Digitizer menu or context menu under Create Line Features.

This option uses the same interaction and keyboard shortcuts as those described above, but generates a closed line feature rather than a polygon.

Related topics

• Create Areas From Lines
• Create Rectangular/Square Area (specify Coordinates)
• Create Rotated Rectangle