Intellicad 2000 is a powerful cad program that uses Autocad's native file system and except for some advanced add-on's is free. Definitely the best of the low cost cad systems out there. I've used Autocad in college many years ago, and it recognizes Autocad shorcuts at the command prompt. It also uses the typical graphical and pull down menus for beginners. It also has a ton of stuff that I'll never use so don't let all the fancy stuff scare you.

I used it to print out portions of the bottom ladder assembly of my Blandford folding kayak. Taped these sheets to a 2x10, drove in the nails and formed my longitudinals around the nails. Cut out crosspieces and screwed to the longitudinals and had the outline of my bottom done.

Hope this helps, Paul.