Doors and windows

Doors and windows are hosted by walls: they move with the wall, cut a clean opening in 2D and 3D, and can't float in space.

Before you start

• At least one wall drawn.

Steps

1. Press D for a door or N for a window (or pick them in the tool rail). The Opening and Niche tools work the same way.
2. In the options bar, click the style button (it shows the current one, e.g. Interior door) to open the picker. Search or browse by group and pick one — it stays chosen until you pick another.
3. Hover over a wall — a preview of that door or window snaps into it. Click to place.
4. Drag along the wall to reposition. The inspector shows the distance to each corner.
5. Fine-tune it in the inspector (below), or click Presets… there to restyle a placed door or window in one go.

What you can choose

• Style — how it opens:
  • Doors, hinged: single, double (French pair), leaf and a half, Dutch, double-acting (swing), café, pivot
  • Doors, sliding: 2-, 3- and 4-panel patio sliders, stacking multi-slide, pocket and double pocket, barn and double barn, closet bypass
  • Doors, folding: 4-panel bifold, bifold pair, folding glass wall, accordion
  • Garage and overhead: sectional, carriage-house, full-view glass, roll-up; plus revolving doors
  • Windows: casement, French casement pair, double-hung, single-hung, 2- and 3-panel sliders, awning, hopper, tilt & turn, jalousie, fixed/picture, picture with casements, glass block, bay, bow and garden windows
• Shape — square, round top (arch), eyebrow, gothic, circle/oval, octagon or peaked. Shaped heads are cut into the wall in 3D, sections and elevations, and work for openings and niches too (an arched passage or niche).
• Leaf design for doors — flush, two-panel, three- or five-panel shaker, six-panel colonial, half glass, full glass, French divided lites, louvred, plank, barn Z-brace or frameless glass.
• Grille (colonial, prairie, diamond, horizontal, vertical, sunburst) and glass (clear, frosted, tinted) for windows and glazed doors.
• Sidelights at one or both ends of a door and a transom above a door or window. Turning them on makes the opening wider or taller when the wall has room.
• Frame colour and leaf colour (door or garage door colour).
• Projects out for bay, bow and garden windows, and which side they project to.
• Hinge and swing: the controls follow the style — hinge side and swing side for hinged doors, which way pocket and barn doors open, where folding doors stack, which side a garage door rolls up into, and the hinge side of a casement.

Default sizes

Every preset has its own typical size (a double garage door is 16′ × 7′, a transom window sits above door height). Tall presets such as an RV door are cut to the wall's height.

Common problems

• "The opening doesn't fit on this wall." It's wider than the wall or overlaps another opening. Reduce the width or move it.
• "An opening would be taller than the wall." Lower the opening height or sill, or raise the wall height.
• "The sidelights leave less than … for the door." Make the door wider or the sidelights narrower. The same goes for a transom that leaves too little height.
• Door swing hits furniture. The issues panel flags it; flip the swing, move the item, or choose a sliding, pocket or barn door. Double-acting and pivot doors are checked on both sides. See Clearance checks.
• Openings moved when I shortened a wall. Openings are kept inside the wall; ones that no longer fit are clamped or removed, and undo restores them.