Thursday

Default scale settings for printouts

While taking printouts in AutoCAD, or in the Page Setup, we can see a scale list ( Fig. 1 ). In order to put our own scales into this list or modify/delete the existing ones, a new command is introduced with AutoCAD 2006® called SCALELISTEDIT.
 

Fig. 1.

If you are good at the subjects I mentioned in the header, you already know what these values in this list means. Now, it is time to modify this list:

Menu / Format / Scale List…
Command : SCALELISTEDIT

Fig. 2.

Every element in this list has a name (as it is in the list), a paper unit and a drawing unit.   
By using ‘Add…’ button, let’s add a scale with properties as shown below:
 

Fig. 3
  
Let’s enter ‘1/10 (cm)’ as the name of our new scale. I chose this name based on the assumption that we are working with cm units and taking a printout with 1/10 scale. In this case, as Günay Özmen (Scaling in Autocad drawings and layouts.) has already mentioned, 1 paper unit (mm) will correspond to 1 drawing unit (cm), thus the scale will be 1/10. For this reason, I set the paper unit and the drawing unit as 1 and close this window by pressing ‘OK’ button. Now, we can see the value that we have just added in the scale list. In order to put the values in the list in upper locations, press ‘Move Up’; and press ‘Move Down’ do the reverse. Press ‘Reset’ button to make the list return to its original form.