Documents Pages and Tabs

Documents, Pages, and Tabs

This page covers document tabs, page setup, paper sizes, rulers, crosshairs, and the desktop window model.

ChemDraft keeps multiple documents in one document window. Each tab has its own document, selection, undo history, file and dirty state, opening warnings, and viewport. The tab strip is always visible. Its + button creates a fresh Untitled document through the same registered command as File > New.

Working with tabs

Use File > New to create a document, File > Open to open one, and File > Save / Save As to write it. When you open a file, ChemDraft reuses a pristine Untitled tab where possible, or activates the tab if that file is already open. The strip scrolls when it becomes crowded while the + control remains available.

Close a tab with its × or with Cmd+W on macOS / Ctrl+W on Windows when multiple tabs are open. A dirty tab follows the Save, Discard, or Cancel decision; Save closes only after a successful save. Closing the only drawing leaves a fresh Untitled document in the window. Use Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab to move between tabs on both platforms.

On macOS, the native menu says Close Window for one tab and Close Tab for multiple tabs. On Windows, closing the document window quits after ChemDraft flushes the session. Tabs restore with the active tab after a session is reopened.

Page setup

Choose File > Page Setup > Paper Size to select US Letter, US Legal, A4, A3, A2, A1, A0, or A5. File > Page Setup > Orientation selects Portrait or Landscape. Custom Size… accepts positive width and height up to 100000 in inches, millimeters, or pixels; existing margins are retained.

The document model holds page size, margins, and orientation. It is not a visual preference: rulers, crosshairs, positioning, exports, and page coordinates consume the active page layout. That shared source prevents a figure from looking aligned on screen but exporting from a different page geometry.

Rulers and crosshairs

View > Show Rulers toggles rulers; View > Show Crosshairs toggles crosshairs. The default shortcuts are Cmd+R / Shift+Cmd+R on macOS and Ctrl+R / Shift+Ctrl+R on Windows. US paper presets use inch rulers and inch-based crosshair ticks. ISO A presets use centimeter rulers and centimeter-based ticks.

The viewport converts consistently between screen and page coordinates while zooming and panning. Rulers follow that viewport state rather than defining document geometry themselves. On Windows, Ctrl+R is claimed by Show Rulers and the app suppresses browser reload chords so a refresh cannot discard an unsaved working state.

Windows and utility surfaces

The app has a document window and separate owned utility windows for palettes, panels, and dialogs. Those utility windows can move independently and do not appear as taskbar entries on Windows. This does not mean each document opens in a separate top-level window: ordinary document work is organized into tabs in the one document window.

Next

• Drawing Basics
• Toolbars and Palettes
• Saving, Sessions, and Recovery