What Is QCAD and What Can You Do With It?
QCAD is a free, open-source 2D computer-aided drafting (CAD) application for Windows, macOS, and Linux. You can use it to produce technical drawings such as building plans, interior layouts, mechanical parts, schematics, and diagrams. It is a good fit if you need precise 2D drafting rather than 3D modelling, and the project states you don't need any CAD experience to get started. The current version is 3.33, and the source code is released under GPLv3.
What QCAD is designed for
QCAD is a two-dimensional drafting system, not a 3D modelling tool. Its stated purpose is creating technical drawings, with examples including:
- Plans for buildings and interiors
- Mechanical parts
- Schematics and diagrams
The application was built with modularity, extensibility, and portability in mind, and its interface is described as intuitive — the feature most often noticed by users.
Core capabilities
| Area | What you get |
|---|---|
| Organisation | Layers, blocks (grouping) |
| Text and fonts | 35 CAD fonts included, TrueType font support |
| Units | Various metric and imperial units |
| File formats | DXF and DWG input and output |
| Printing | Printing to scale, printing on multiple pages |
| Drawing tools | Over 40 construction tools, over 20 modification tools |
| Entities | Points, lines, arcs, circles, ellipses, splines, polylines, texts, dimensions, hatches, fills, raster images |
| Selection and precision | Powerful entity selection tools, object snaps, measuring tools |
| Reusable content | Part library with over 4800 CAD parts |
Extending and automating QCAD
Beyond interactive drawing, QCAD offers two routes for automation:
- ECMAScript (JavaScript) scripting interface — described as very complete and extremely powerful, for customising or extending the application.
- Command line tools — including
dwg2pdf,dwg2svg, anddwg2bmp, useful for batch conversion of drawings to other formats.
There is also a separate QCAD/CAM variant that adds G-code export and nesting.
Who it suits
QCAD fits readers who want a no-cost, open-source tool for 2D drafting on any of the three major desktop platforms, and who value DXF/DWG compatibility for exchanging drawings with other CAD software. If your work is purely 2D — plans, parts, schematics — the feature set above covers the typical workflow from drawing through scaled printing. If you need 3D modelling, QCAD is not aimed at that.
You can download QCAD from qcad.org.