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How to scale your drawings in Autocad

Step 1 set up a "layout tab" for your printing device

Step 2 Create a border with your company name and address, logo, date, scale etc.

Step 3 Create a viewport

Step 4 Set your scale

Set up a layout tab for your device

At the bottom of your drawing area you will find the layout tabs. These have 2 functions, they can be renamed to show an "instant view" of either part or whole of your drawing. They can also be set up with the device properties such as paper size, printer etc you wish to use for that tab.

Start by setting up a fresh layout tab. Use either "Layout 1" or "Layout 2" tabs. If these are not present right mouse over an existing layout tab and click "New layout" from the pop up menu. You should see a new layout tab appear at the end of the row of tabs. Left click on this tab.

Autocad will now create it's own "Paper space" view. You will see a view of a sheet of paper with a dotted line around the edge and a rectangle in the middle of the screen. Autocad will have taken the printing area of the default printing device in windows and created this view of a printed page. The rectangle is actually a viewport. This acts like a "cut out " of the paper.

Once a viewport has been created either automatically or to suit your page size you will have access to Autocad's 3 modes of operation.

1) Click on the model tab. This is called model space and is where you do all of you CAD work. You draw all objects at 1:1 size by adopting a unit of measurement throughout your drawing. Note the arrow type X and Y axis ucsicon.

2) Paper space for creating and modifying your border. Click on the layout just created and then click on the grey or white area of the "paper". You will see Autocad's triangle ucsicon.

3) Now double click inside the rectangle which is actually a viewport. The triangle ucsicon will disappear. The border of the viewport will thicken and a new arrow type UCS icon will appear in the viewport. This is Autocad's "floating model space".

You may be able to see your drawing objects in this viewport. If not do a zoom extents. Now you can pan or zoom to adjust the view to something useful.

However if you have followed these instructions you will only have Autocad's automatic viewport. It's only purpose is to re-assure you that you haven't lost your drawing data.

Now erase the viewport. Your data will disappear. Don't worry you haven't deleted it, just the view of it through the paper. Do a quick check by clicking on the model tab.

So now you need to set up the layout to suit your device and page size requirements.

Right mouse over the layout tab and select "page set up" which brings up the page setup manager dialogue box. Click on modify to modify the layout tab which is highlighted on the left.

The essentials here are to pick the device from the list of devices stored in windows. Then the paper size you wish to use. Landscape paper sizes are more useful as they make more use of the screen.

Next pick "extents" under "What to plot". Tick the "centre plot" option.

Just to the right is Plot scale. Set this to be scale 1:1. This refers to the scale which is used to print the paper, not the scale of the drawing.

In the top right hand corner you choose whether you want colour or monochrome printing. You can edit the plotted lineweights in of each colour used in the drawing by clicking on the edit bot tom for the file you have chosen.

Click OK when you have finished and close the page setup manager.

You can check on your work by using the distance tool off the inquiry toolbar or type "di" short cut into the command line followed by enter key. Use it to measure the approximate Length's of the dotted lines. They correspond to the printing area of the device you have chosen.

Now erase the automatic viewport which appears as a rectangle inside the printable area.

Now draw a rectangle (Rec - short cut), to represent the edge of the paper, just inside the dotted line area.

Draw a line where your title box and legend will be.

Now create a new layer, call it "Viewport" and give it a default colour which is different to the colour used for the paper.

Find the viewport toolbar. Right mouse over existing toolbars and select viewport. Dock this in a horizontal position so that the scale box is visible

Select single viewport icon. Click in the top left hand corner and then click in the bottom right hand corner of your intended area.

You may see your drawing data appear in this viewport. If not double click inside it (floating model space) then do a zoom extents. Note the decimal scale value on the viewport toolbar.

You can convert this into an approximate scale by rounding up so a value of 0.02346 is approximately 0.02 = 2/100 = 1:50 scale.

Set the scale accurately by clicking on the down arrow. If the set scales are too large you can type in a scale as long as you keep to the format required i.e. 1:500