Issues with annotative text/dimensions

I work for an electric cooperative, and we have different sets of CAD standards depending on what department you are in. We are starting to use the annotation text/scaling, and I ran into an interesting problem.

In my department, when I create our construction unit drawings, the titleblock is on paperspace and it contains attributes that are filled out accordingly. There is a viewport on the paperspace sheet that contains the contents of the actual construction unit which resides in modelspace. All the text and dimension styles are set up as annotative. When I change the scale in the viewport to a different scale factor, all my text & dimension styles adjust accordingly, and it works beautifully.

Now, in our Subdivision & Commercial Department (SUBCOM), their drawings are setup to where they have a model template, a titleblock template, and a plottable template. Currently, when they setup their drawings for a new project, there are 3 steps that are involved when setting up their project drawings:

1)A project model file is created by selecting the model template file. This is where the residential subdivision or commercial background is placed and once the model file contains this information, it is sent off to our GIS department, and it is geo-referenced into our huge mapping system. Once it is geo-referenced, it is sent back to the SubComm Department, and the personnel can begin their electrical design on this file. The project model file uses annotative text/dimension styles.

2)A project titleblock is created by selecting the titleblock template file. The project titleblock does not use annotative text.

3)A project plottable file is created by selecting the plottable template file. The project titleblock is XREF’d into the plottable project file (paperspace) and is copied onto the other paperspace layouts. The model file is also XREF’d, but it is XREF’d into modelspace. The paperspace layouts contain the viewports of the model and is scaled accordingly.

Now, here is where the problems begin in using the annotative text/dimension styles in the SUBCOM Department. The annotative text/dimensions that are used on the model file do not seem to scale properly in the plottable viewport after it has been XREF’d into my plottable file, i.e., the 3/32” annotative text height does not appear as 3/32” once it is XREF’d in. It acts as though something is “lost” somewhere once the other file is XREF’d. Is there a setting that I don’t know about, and if so, can somebody share that with me, or do we need to modify the whole process and not XREF our model file?

I apologize that this is so long, but I wanted to explain thoroughly how our process is setup for the different departments.

Have you checked that the annotative scale of the view port is the same, not just the VP scale?

What is there a difference? I have my model set up to an annotative scale of 1" = 10', and the viewport scale on my plottable drawing is setup as 1" = 10'. Is this what you are talking about?

.....Now, here is where the problems begin in using the annotative text/dimension styles in the SUBCOM Department. The annotative text/dimensions that are used on the model file do not seem to scale properly in the plottable viewport after it has been XREF’d into my plottable file, i.e., the 3/32” annotative text height does not appear as 3/32” once it is XREF’d in. It acts as though something is “lost” somewhere once the other file is XREF’d. Is there a setting that I don’t know about, and if so, can somebody share that with me, or do we need to modify the whole process and not XREF our model file? ...

So the text is showing but not at the correct height? If that is correct then I would suspect the scale factor for the viewport. Also, are you mixing units, so you have some files where inch is the unit of measure and others where a foot is the unit of measure?

Always helps to attach a drawing illustrating the problem, not the actual file, just a small portion that exhibits the behaviour.

The units were the problem. The model file was setup as meters and the plottable file was setup as feet. Once I changed the plottable file to meters, I detached the XREF, then re-attached it, and it works like a charm now. Oh the simple things that we get ourselves boxed in on! Thank you for your help!

Glad you were able to work it out.

Well Done!

Here's an idea:

Why not try and get everyone on board with one all encompassing CAD standard? It would probably reduce, if not eliminate problems like this.

Unfortunately, the company I work for has never had a CAD Manager until I was hired, and quite honestly, they are extremely reluctant to hand that title over to me because they feel that personnel should be able to just "run" with it. Since I hired on, I have created their CAD Standard from scratch along with the .ctb file, templates, script routines, and blocks. All the old blocks were nested with so much crap that every time you would open up an old drawing, there was all kinds of error messages, and items would never purge out (I would purge, then save, close & reopen, and start the whole process again). I hold monthly CAD meetings, but upper management wants that to stop as well. Obviously, I think that many of these folks have never worked with a CAD Manager before.