Printing To Scale

[tomtomtom]

Hi all

I am using autocad 2011.

I have a problem with printing to scale.

I have completed a drawing in model space with a 1:1 ratio, all my units are in mm.

I have created 3 different view ports in paper space to show different aspects of my drawing, each view port has a different scale.

The whole drawing is to be printed on A2 size paper.

My main viewport (which contains the primary aspect of my drawing) is to be drawn to scale. When I click on this view port Autocad states that has a scale of 0.008583 – what does this mean? See picture 1

When I print the document the scale is set to 1 inches = 25.4 – Why does it do this (See picture 2)

All I want to do is print my drawing so that it fits onto an A2 page, but the main view port is to be printed to a scale. I want to scale to be sensible some like 1 in 200 or 1 in 50 etc so that other people can use a ruler to work out the real life dimension.

I hope that makes sense.

Can someone help?

Thanks

[nestly]

>> My main viewport (which contains the primary aspect of my drawing) is to be drawn to scale. When I click on this view port Autocad states that has a scale of 0.008583 – what does this mean?

 

The ScaleList at the lower right in the status bar is the heart and soul of printing to scale. In you example... 0.008583 is the scale relative to 1:1 (ie 1 divided by 0.008583 = ~116) so the viewport is currently showing a scale of roughly 1:116. But don't even worry about those decimal numbers in the scale list, you're always going to set the viewport scale by picking it from the list such as 1"=1'-0" for imperial drawings, or 1:200 for metric. If an appropriate scale is not on the list, you simply add it to the list. Assuming that you have the viewport zoomed to roughly where you want it (~1:116), you'll either create a new scale of 1:115 or 1:120 and use that, or perhaps the standard scale of 1:100 will suffice. Set each of your (3) viewports using the scale list in the status bar (remember you can add any scale you like if it's not already on the list). After you do that, your Layout is a pretty close representation of what the plot will look like. When you proceed to the plot manager page, clear out the custom scale of 1:25.4 and use 1:1. The only time you'll likely use a custom scale in the plot manager is if you're plotting from modelspace (ie not using viewports).

 

Everything I've said above assumes that you've used a metric template (acadiso.dwt) for your metric drawing. If that's not the case then I'll have to amend some of what I said above.

 

PS, if you can attach the drawing, it will probably lead to a faster and more precise answers.

 

 

[Dadgad]

My guess is that your drawing has been done on an Imperial units template, to which Autocad defaults, if you have not chosen, a Metric unit based template. Try running the -dwgunits command (include the hyphen), and it will report the database units of your drawing. 1 means inches, 3 means millimeters. In OPTIONS, on the FILE tab you can find the TEMPLATE settings, browse to, and set an appropriate metric template as your default QNEW template. The metric templates typically end in ISO. If your drawing needs to be rescaled, follow the commandline prompts in the -dwgunits command. You should probably create a copy of your drawing, and experiment on that one, lest you screw up your drawing. When viewing your modelspace drawing through your paperspace viewport, you probably zoomed extents, which will scale your drawing in such a way that it can be accomodated by your viewport, in its entirety. Once you have done that you can look in the lower right hand corner of your screen to see the scale of the active viewport, or you can check it in properties. At this point you can choose an appropriate scale, to which you would like to set the viewport. Then set the scale you want, and LOCK the viewport, so that the scale won't change again, unless it is unlocked. Whoops, nestly beat me to it, and probably covered all the bases, he usually does.

[nestly]

Yeah, I kinda have a feeling it may be a metric drawing in an Imperial template. I don't have a lot of experience converting metric>imperial and vice versa, but I think it's probably less trouble to just copy/paste into the proper template to avoid the problems having the wrong dimstyles, scalelists, etc.

[ReMark]

Viewport scale can be assigned/changed via the Viewports Toolbar, Properties palette, Quick Properties or by way of the scale list that appears in lower right-hand corner of one's screen on the Taskbar after clicking on the viewport frame. This link contains images of some of these options.

 

http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showth...ight=viewports

[nestly]

Viewport scale can be assigned/changed via the Viewports Toolbar, Properties palette, Quick Properties

 

True, however those methods do not update the CANNOSCALE, therefore annotative objects will not update and the Viewport Scale will be out of sync with the Annotative scale. The Viewport Scale List in the status bar is always visible when viewport scale operations may be performed, and it's the proper method for changing scale when using Annotative objects.

[ReMark]

Sorry, I must have missed the OP's reference to using annotative scaling.

[SLW210]

If you can post the drawing here, maybe someone will have time to look at it and give a step-by-step on setting it all up.