Limits and plotting

Hi all,

I've been an AutoCAD user for years (used off and on for school work) but embarrassingly I've never grasped setting up my drawing for certain paper sizes or scales/plotting.

Here's where I get confused:

Right off the bat, say for a template file, I want to draw a border that will represent the sides of a piece of paper to be printed on.

I set my units (in this case, architectural) and then want to define my limits which I will then draw lines around (the paper's border).

Say I want to use A-size paper, 8.5 x 11 .... Do I set up my upper right limit as 8.5", 11"? Wouldn't that make the limits and border significantly smaller than the size of my drawing objects, since they themselves will be measured in feet?

This has always confused me... I'm about to draw a wall that is 20' long, yet my limit is only 8.5" on a side.... something isn't right.

Please advise =)

I have never used limits.

Set up your template with Layouts set the printers and paper sizes you normally use. Set to plot by Layout.

Draw the appropriate boarder (and possibly titleblock) for each size.

Create block with attributes for filling in the titleblock (you might also choose to include the titleblock in the block).

Now you are set. Set it and forget it is my motto. Never worry about it again. No calculations required.

so, you want to create your border and title block in paper space, on one of the lay out tabs and you want to draw your building or whatever in modelspace on the model tab. When you are done drawing your building at a 1:1 scale go to paperspace and create a viewport (mview) no you can see what you just drew in modelspace. you can double click inside the viewport to scale it appropriatly depending on the size of what you drew. or click the viewport and bring up properties and in there you can also change the scale the is set.

Hope that helps

ps- i also dont use limits

Thanks, JD!

I definitely like your thinking. Why make it harder for yourself when you can use layouts?

For some reason, the instructor I had for my drafting courses made us do everything with limits in model space... he would have us save different .dtw's for every paper size, and draw the borders in model space to represent the paper's borders... and it never stuck with me.

But the layouts make much more sense, I'll just use those.

EDIT: Thank you chelsea as well, that sounds like what I was looking for.

EDIT 2: Hey guys, another thing I've forgotten, when I double click the view to select it, I don't know how to get back to the properties where I can set paper size and scale, how do I get this to come back up?

EDIT 3: Page setup, found it! I am all set.

The easy answer is to draw the title block and borders with the layers and color's needed. Make sure to add a trim line at the full measurements of the paper. Add the text in the areas that are required. Place mtext/dtext XXX in areas of the title block that will be modified after the drawing is completed.

Set the Units with the format menu to Arch. with the max pres.

set the limits for the paper size.

Follow the above instructions.

When you are completed make the drawing a block. All the info on the title block is now part of the drawing.

When making the block choose 0,0 as the insertion point>select all (Make sure that the insertion point is slected)>deleat.

Save the drawing as Title block template.

Then you can open the drawing and set your limits and units to the size you need in real world measurements.

After you have created the drawing, insert the title block and scale it up until the inside border is around the drawing. (you can move it around a bit for best fit). Then explode the Title block. All of the information is now part of the drawing and can be edited normaly.

If you drew the title block at say 11" x 8.5" you know that the border bottom line is 11" long. Use this line to figure out the scale of the drawing.

rename the drawing and save.

This is how I have been doing it hope this helps.