The Autocad 2d workspace provides two parallel working environments indicated by the Model and Layout tabs on your Status bar at the bottom of your screen. These workspaces are fully explored in our Autocad 2d courses. 
Initially you create your drawing in Model space. The Layout tabs represent your Paper space, ie. how the drawing will look when printed. This can be as simple as adding a title block, or you can arrange multiple snapshots of the model, for plan, elevation and isometric views. Or you could have various details of the drawing at different scales.
You enter Model space by clicking on the Model tab. This is where most of your drafting work takes place. This space is three-dimensional and unlimited, but unless you’re working on a 3d model, you would use only the x and y-axes; the z-axis you would ignore. It’s as if you are looking down at a drawing placed on the floor; the z-axis is up towards you.
The Paper space layouts represent the actual printed (or plotted) sheets of paper, for example A4, A3, A2, etc. In each layout you can create a few Viewport windows, which display the objects you’ve created in Model space. Drawings are drawn to real scale. The Viewports are like windows into the Model space, and it’s these windows that you scale, not the objects themselves. You can create a new Viewport by typing MV (Make View) in the Command line.
By default a new drawing has two layout tabs, Layout 1 and Layout 2. If you start with a template drawing, however, the default layouts may be different. You can create as many layouts as you want – just right-click on the Layout tab, and choose an option, or go to the Insert menu > Layout > Layout from Template, or Insert > Layout > Layout Wizard.
Dimensions are usually added in Model space, and borders, title blocks and logos added in Paper space. You also tend to print from Paper space: right-click on a Layout tab to enter the Page Setup Manager. This will open up a dialog box where you choose your printer and paper size. Scale here is 1:1. The printer or plotter may be connected to the computer or a network, or you can choose a PDF creator. Click the Modify button to set up your required paper size, etc. You may also access these in Application > Plot (or in the pre-2009 interface: File > Plot). You can also hit Preview to see how it’ll look as a PDF, and make final tweaks to the position, for example Offset.
Working with layouts is a crucial part of the Autocad 2d workflow, and we explore them in full in our Autocad classes. You can 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