Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)

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Getting to Know the Toolbar

Version 6.70 has a new tool, “Draw Walls” shown here . It can be used to draw both interior and exterior walls in lieu of the “Create A Common Room Shape” tool.
Positioning Fixtures and Accessories

The space planner attempts to detect when a fixture is placed over a wall. This “collision detection” will cause the furniture item that you are attempting to position to jump away from the wall.

To avoid this, hold down the Shift key on the keyboard as you position the furniture item. This will permit you to place the item anywhere you desire, without interference from the built-in collision detection. On touch screens, touch the furniture item for one second or longer to turn off collision detection, then drag the item into position.

This technique also helps you to position curtains over a wall or window. You can also nudge furniture and accessories in one-inch increments by using the arrow keys on your keyboard. If you hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard the arrow keys will nudge items in 1/8″ increments.
Icons Surrounding Fixtures

Once you select an item the satellite icons appear around the template. Several different operations may be performed on the item using these icons.

If the item is featured on the website, the icon at the 6 o’clock position will open a new browser page to that product’s web page. Manufacturer’s products cannot be resized. They are fixed at the dimensions provided by the Manufacturer. If the item is not featured on the website and is part of our Generic Templates the resize button will appear.
Rotating a Fixture

To rotate a piece, start by selecting it. The icon in the upper left-hand corner is the rotation icon. Using the left-hand mouse button, mouse-down on this icon and drag in a circular motion around the piece and it will rotate to any angle. Remember to continue to hold down the mouse button as you drag the mouse pointer around the piece.

When using this method, pieces will snap to a multiple of 90° as you rotate the item. To avoid this hold down the Shift key. You can then easily rotate the item to any desired angle.

Instead of dragging, you may rotate the piece by 90° by clicking on the rotation icon using the left-hand mouse button. You may hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and click the rotation icon using the left-mouse button to rotate the piece in increments of 10°.

When you hold down the Shift key the direction of rotation will be counter-clockwise when you click the rotation icon instead of clockwise. Clicking the rotation icon using the left-hand mouse button while holding down both the Ctrl and Shift keys yields a 10° counter-clockwise rotation.

As a shortcut for expert users, you may use your right mouse button to click on any piece to rotate it 90° clockwise without having to select it first and without having to click exactly on the rotation icon. Holding down the Ctrl key will yield a 10° rotation. Shift results in a counter-clockwise rotation.
Adjusting the Room Shape

To insert a corner into a wall, simply drag any portion of the wall to the new, desired position. To remove a corner from a wall, touch the corner and straighten that segment of the wall.

The length of a wall may normally be adjusted in 1-inch increments by dragging an end or corner of the wall. However, when a wall becomes nearly vertical or nearly horizontal, the software automatically adjusts the wall, so it will be either perfectly horizontal or perfectly vertical.

If you wish to temporarily disable this automatic snap to horizontal or vertical there is another solution:

If using a Mouse: You may hold down the Shift key on the keyboard while you adjust the wall to the desired dimension. The software will not attempt to automatically adjust the dimension so that the wall is either horizontal or vertical. You may then adjust the wall in small one-inch increments as long as the Shift key is held down.

On a touch-screen device without a keyboard: you won’t be able to use shift. Instead, start by moving the corner on the wall that is opposite to the wall that you wish to adjust by a few feet. Then adjust the desired wall to achieve the dimension that you want. Finally, return the first corner to the original position.

You may nudge any of the wall corners by using the keyboard arrow keys . Click once on a corner point to select it. It will turn green. Then use the arrow keys on the keyboard to move the corner in one-inch increments. Holding down the Ctrl key while using the arrow keys allows movement in 1/8″ increments.

You may select an entire connected sequence of walls by clicking on a wall. The entire connected sequence of walls may be moved using the keyboard arrow keys as described in the preceding paragraph. This is especially helpful when working with interior walls
Creating Curved Walls

To create a curved wall, start by creating three consecutive points along the wall where you want the curved wall. The first and last of these points will define the width or opening of the curved wall segment. Position a point approximately mid-way between these two points and drag it to obtain the approximate depth of the curved wall. Double-click this central point and the initial straight wall segments will be replaced with a curved wall. Finally, adjust the central point to achieve the desired depth and width of the curved wall.
Tape Measure Tool

Measurements are easily made horizontally or vertically. The tape measure will snap once it gets close. If this is not desired, simply hold down the Shift key to override this. You may tilt or rotate the measurement as is described in “Rotating a Piece”. If you move your mouse away from the tape measure, it allows you to be more accurate in your movements. To adjust the measurement to a specific size, double-click on the tape measure and edit the dimension in the dialog box. You can also duplicate and delete the tape measurements as needed.
Undo and Redo

After making modifications to your room plan, you may use the Undo function to reverse the effects of the most recent operation. You may click Undo more than once to continue to reverse the effects of earlier operations. Each time you click Undo, the then most-recent operation is undone. You may continue to use Undo until you’ve undone all of the operations that have been recorded in the Undo history. If you accidently click Undo too many times, you may click Redo to reapply the most recently undone operation.

After using Undo or Redo, as soon as you make a modification to your room plan the history of operations begins anew. You will not be able to Undo operations prior to this point in time.
Saving Your Plan

OSI will create your free account and save your plan. Your email address is used as your account login.

To save your plan, select File and then Save As from the submenu.

You may create folders to save multiple plans together. To create folders and to manage your saved plans, select File and then Open Manage Plans and Folders from the submenu.

If you are creating plans for multiple homes or for several clients it is recommended that you create a folder for each. Use the homeowner’s name as the folder name. Example: Ron & Shallen’s Summer Home. Within this folder you may save plans like Living Room – Option A, Living Room – Option B, Smith Family – Master, etc.

Your plan or folder name may include upper and lowercase letters, digits, blanks, and many of the special characters including the comma, period, hyphen, apostrophe, ampersand, and hash symbol (#). The following special characters are not allowed in plan or folder names: \ / : * ? < > | “

When working with Folders in the Manage Plans and Folders dialog box, please note that when you click on the yellow folder icon , the folder will be opened, and the contents of the folder will be displayed below the name of the folder. If instead you click on the name of the folder, the folder will be selected. This also works for plans. Also, if you select the folder and press the “Delete” key or the “Delete” on the top tool bar, you can delete all plans within the folder.

You may uncheck the option show Room Plan Thumbnails to speed up the operation of this dialogue box and provide more room to display long plan names. Also, thumbnails will not be displayed when there are more than 32 plans within the folder.
Printing Your Plan
You may notice, you only have the option to Print to PDF. Since many printers’ default to factory settings when printing, this ensures the plan is printed as accurately to scale as possible. Also, “Print to PDF” supports larger paper sizes: 11″ by 17″ and 24″ by 36″ and A4 for metric users.
Print to PDF:

When you click “Print to PDF” from the File dropdown, it will open a dialogue box. This box will give you options to select your preferences. Please keep in mind:

Used in conjunction with Adobe Reader DC

Printing at a scale of ¼” = 1′ is provided

When printing at a scale of ¼” = 1′ Paper size (letter, tabloid, or 24″ by 36″) is automatically selected based on the size of your plan. If Metric has been selected in the File, Options dialog box then metric paper sizes are used.

When printing to scale, be advised you may need to select “Actual Size” within Adobe Reader DC (Shrink oversized pages is the default).
Drawing Walls

This new feature allows you to draw walls to your specifications by selecting “” in the top tool bar. You can click and drag to your desired length. To create a corner, simply click and drag a perpendicular line. By selecting a grey point within, you can also move the wall if needed by clicking and dragging the green highlighted wall or using your arrow keys. To end the internal wall building tool you can press “ESC” or click the first OR last point created. You may delete a corner by clicking it to select, then press the Delete key on your keyboard. You can delete an entire sequence of connected wall segments b clicking on a portion of the wall to select the entire wall sequence. Then click Delete on your keyboard. Undo and Redo functions work if you make a mistake!

The arrow keys on the keyboard may be used to nudge a corner or the entire connected wall sequence.
Adding Text

Begin by clicking on the icon “A”, then click anywhere within your room plan to initially position the text. Double click in the center of the text box or click on the icon in the lower left-hand corner of the text area and enter the text that you’d like displayed. You can adjust the size, font, and positioning of the text that is used. You may select a specific color for the text, and for the background behind the text. An option is also provided that provides a transparent background. After clicking OK, you may position the text exactly where you want it.
Available Options
Hiding the Product Panel

You may hide the product selection panel when it is not needed. This is useful on small screen devices like smart phones or when you want all of the available screen space to review or present your plan. You can bring the product selection panel back into view using the right pointing icon.
Using Pan, Zoom, and Fit

You can move your plan around on the screen by selecting the pan tool. Click the pan icon and then click and drag your plan to the desired new position.

You may zoom in to see your plan in greater detail and to aid in fine positioning of items within your plan. The icon zooms out and provides you with an overview of your plan. Click either of these icons to increase or decrease the zoom level. The icon Fit will resize your plan so that it fits entirely within your available screen space.

There’s a shortcut for expert users! Select any item in your plan and click the icon to zoom in. This will center the plan on that item and zoom in for a closer look.
Group and Ungroup

To Group items, click and dragging a box around the items. Then the grouping icon will appear at the 3 o’clock position. This icon allows you to group multiple items that you would like to manipulate at a time. The items will stay grouped together until you click the ungroup icon once more. Alternatively, if you hold down the Ctrl key and click each item the icon will appear as well.
Working with Multiple Items

You may select multiple items and then alter their properties simultaneously in the Information dialog box. There are two ways to select multiple items. To select multiple items, click the first item to select it. Then hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and click the other items. The selection area will expand as each additional item is selected.

Another method that may be used to select multiple items is to start at any location on the floor and click and drag across the plan to draw a rectangle that fully surrounds all the items that you wish to select.

Once multiple items are selected you may move or rotate them as a group. If the selected items are all Generic items, you may open the Information dialog box and select a custom color for all of them. If the selected items use the same Generic template, you may change the size of all of them in one operation.
Using a Touch Screen Device

The room planner operates very well on iPads and other tablet devices using the appropriate browsers as described in “Supported Browsers.” Some also use touch-screen kiosk to display the room planner.

The current version operates very well on smart phones. On small screen devices it is helpful to hide and expose the product selection panel on an as-needed basis. Keyboard shortcuts will not be able to be used.

You may use a touch-screen with the room planner. However, to prepare a complete and detailed room plan and for precision work a mouse is highly recommended. Since touch screens are less precise, please be sure to use the zoom function to perform detailed work.
Supported Browsers
Our software is supported in the following browsers:
Google Chrome (the latest production release)

Mozilla Firefox (the latest production release)

Internet Explorer (Version 11 with the latest Window Updates)

Microsoft Edge (With the latest Window Updates)

Macintosh Safari (the latest production release when using an Apple device)

We are unable to offer support for the room planner on the Windows operating system when Safari is used or with versions of Internet Explorer prior to V11. This is due to the inherent limitations in those older browsers.

Our room planner uses some very advanced browser features, so please be sure that you have installed the latest software updates for your operating system, browser, graphics device and printer drivers. You may need to run the browser update or operating system update more than once if you have not done so in a while.