Attending to the dimension scale in Autocad 2d drafting is a very important factor when adding annotations to a drawing. We discuss various aspects of dimensioning a drawing in our Autocad 2d training courses.
We first make the Dimension layer active from the Layer panel drop-down list. We can may add our dimensions in several ways. You can first type dim into the bottom Command line which basically opens a mini-application within Autocad. We can then type in abbreviated commands and click on the appropriate objects. The usual method, however, is to go to the Dimension drop-down menu in the Annotations tab.
Here we find the various commands for different types of dimensioning. For example, to add horizontal or vertical measurements we choose the Linear tool, or the Quick Dimension tool. We then click on the two endpoints of a line, and click a third time to set the location of the measurement.
Often the dimensioning scale needs adjusting: the numbers are too large or too small. We then type dimscale into the Command line and hit Enter. Autocad then asks for a new scale factor, the default being 1 which is fine for small drawings of machine parts, etc. We could type in 50 or 100, for example. A good rule of thumb is if the overall dimension of the drawing is 1:50, then 50 is the dimensions scale. If the overall dimensioning will be 1:100 then the dimensions scale could be 100.
Then either delete the previous small measurement and dimension it again, or use the Update Dimension tool to update it. When we create dimensions in Autocad a special layer called DEFPOINTS (standing for definition points) is automatically created; do not erase or alter this layer.
Then when we scale the drawing precisely in a paper layout, the dimension annotations should look good relative to the paper sheet size.
More information on all features of the program can be found at the AutoDesk website. And see many examples of our clients’ work on our Facebook page.
Other related Autocad 2d Blog Posts:

• Autocad 2d basics
• Autocad 2d introduction
• Autocad 2d drawing
• Autocad 2d workspace
• Autocad 2d isometric