ANNOTATIVE SCALING IN AUTOCAD

What is it?

Annotative scaling is the process in which you select a scale for a drawing and all the annotative text, dimensions, blocks and hatches change to reflect the scale. This can also be set independently for each viewport so multiple scales can show on one sheet drawing.

Set your drawing/viewport scale

The scale of your drawing or viewport can be set using the Annotation Scale drop down, located at the bottom of the screen.

There are 2 additional options next to the annotation scale, these are:

Annotation Visibility

 This controls whether, when you select the annotative entity, it shows only the current scale of the entity or all scales.

On the left we have a door selected showing Annotation Visibility turned ON. On the right we have the same door selected showing Annotation Visibility turned OFF.

Automatically Add Scales To Annotative Objects When Scale Changes

This tool adds a new scale to an object if you change the scale of the drawing. E.g. With this turned off, change the scale from 1:100 to 1:50 - the annotation will disappear if you haven’t added the entity to the 1:50 scale. With this feature on, it will show the annotation and automatically add it to the new scale factor.

text

Access the Text Style Manager from the Annotate Ribbon and clicking the Text Style dropdown and clicking Edit Text Styles.

The Text Style Manager will be shown. You will see under “Size” a checkbox called Annotative.

This will set your text to the ‘Paper Text Height’ multiplied by your scale factor.

dimensions

From the Annotate Ribbon on the Dimension panel, click the Dimension Style Manager button.

The Dimension Style Manager dialog box will be shown. Select the dimension style you wish to edit and click Modify.

On the Fit tab, click the Annotative checkbox.

This will set your dimensions to the set values multiplied by your scale factor.

blocks

From the Insert Ribbon > Block panel, click the Create button to show the block creation dialog box.

From the Block Creation dialog box, check the Annotative checkbox.

This will set your blocks to their size multiplied by your scale factor.

Hatch

From the Home Ribbon > Draw panel, click the Hatch button.

The Hatch dialog will show, from the Options groupbox, check the Annotative checkbox.

This will set your hatch scale to the size specified multiplied by your scale factor.

Annotative scalelist

Each annotative object has a scale list associated to it which displays a list of all the scales the entity will show at. This list can be modified using the properties palette. Annotative Scale is under the Misc section,

Select and right click any Annotative object and choose Properties.

The Properties palette for the object you selected will be shown.

Click ADD to add additional scales manually or click DELETE to remove scales from the list.

If the scale is in the list and Model space or your viewport are shown at these scales, your annotation will show, if they are at different scales, your annotation will not be shown.

changing viewport annotative scale

Annotative scales are directly linked to the viewport scale, if you change the scale of a viewport, it will change the annotative scale of the objects within the viewport.

NOTE: As long as that scale has been added to the Annotation Object Scale.