Tutorial: Using a List of Coordinates



QCAD offers a simple and convenient way to quickly import or use a list of plain coordinates. These coordinates may for example originate from a spreadsheet, CSV file or a 3rd party program. Based on these coordinates, QCAD can create points, lines, a polyline, a spline, circles with a given radius, text labels at the given coordinates, etc.

Step 1: Getting the Coordinates into the Right Format

First, get the coordinates into the following format (for example through a CSV export from a spreadsheet):


For example:


Step 2: Copying the Coordinates

Copy the whole list of these coordinates to the clipboard (select the multiple lines from the plain text or CSV file and copy to clipboard in a text editor).

Step 3: Using / Pasting the Coordinates

In QCAD, start the tool you want to use. This can for example be Draw > Line > Line from 2 PointsDraw > Polyline > Draw PolylineDraw > Circle > Center, Radius or any other tool that accepts a sequence of coordinates as input.

Click into the command line input field or press the space bar to make sure the command line has the keyboard focus.

Paste the list of coordinates into the command line input field using Ctrl-V (or ⌘V on macOS).

QCAD now enters the list of coordinates just as if you would have entered them one by one manually, and in the process draws points, lines, a polyline, spline, circles, text labels or whatever the tool creates.