Dear Sirs:
I use Draw fairly extensively, and often like a mechanical CAD system,
notwithstanding the decimal accuracy of about 3 digits instead of about
12 for a real CAD. I am also aware that there is/was an American
University using this as a CAD tool with their students.
In doing so, there are many extra tricks that can be helpful, such as
creating a *_library of "components"_* or pre-drawn items that one
re-uses frequently.
When I was using Generic CADD, back in the DOS days, one user had made
and shared an extensive library of Mechanical piece parts, largely U.S.
machine screw sizes and threads. what he did with a series of macros
could as easily be done by repeated copy, paste and assemble of the
threads, heads, etc.
Added to that, I always have at least one "scrap page" at the end of
each file to save items or groups for reuse as I create.
Since I use LibreOffice in both Windows XP and Linux (Fedora 17
x_86-64), I have an extra hard drive on that machine to handle data
storage and sharing, and 2 NAS boxes on the network for my other machines.
From this I build electronic and electrical hardware and other
mechanical conveniences, largely for my own use in retirement.
_*The "zoom rectangle":*_
One such item is a "zoom rectangle". It is simply a rectangle, named
something like "zoom rectangle" with no fill and the border of a colour
that I am not likely to use as part of the actual drawing (by habit, I
usually use Light Blue). I then copy, paste and size on the active slide
around the area I am working on at the time. Then I use object zoom to
get in there quickly, especially if I have to go in and out of that area
many times in rapid repetition.