1.1 The Groundwork: How AutoCAD Handles Scale, Units, and Paper Size

It may surprise you to learn that we won't use a scale when drawing in AutoCAD. In fact, all drawing in AutoCAD is done full scale ! This means simply that a 3-inch line will actually be drawn 3-inches long. A line 3 miles long will be drawn 3 miles long!

Okay, so if we draw full scale, how can we put a house plan or refinery unit onto a sheet of paper unless the paper is very, very large? Well, we actually tell AutoCAD that we have a sheet of paper that is very, very large “ a bit larger, in fact, than the house or unit we'll draw. Then later, when we plot (or print) the drawing to an actual sheet of paper, we plot to scale .

How do we determine the size of the paper we'll tell AutoCAD to use? I'm glad you asked!

We know the standard sizes of paper used in the design world. And we know the standard scales used. To determine what we tell AutoCAD about paper size, we need to determine how many feet or inches (or millimeters) will fit onto each size sheet at each scale. The easiest way to do this is to look at the Drawing Scales Chart in Appendix A. (You'll find a similar chart in the possession of all CAD operators.)

Note	I've added a discussion of printing/plotting as an independent lesson as Lesson 20 of this book. The idea of making it independent is to allow students/instructors to include it at any point (after the first lesson) in their schedule.

To use the chart, we select the scale at which we'll want the final drawing plotted, and then select the paper size for the plot. Where row and column meet, we find the width x height limits of your drawing. (We'll talk more about limits later.) There is a place for these numbers in the drawing setup.

It's probably best to jump right in. So as the heading says