Datasheet

Control Imperial vs. Metric Settings
Starting from scratch with either an imperial (acad.dwt) or metric (acadiso.dwt) template
controls the files used for linetypes and hatch patterns. ACAD.lin and ACAD.pat are used for
imperial, and ACADISO.lin and ACADISO.pat are used for metric. You can change this using
the MEASUREMENT variable. The imperial setting is 0; the metric setting is 1.
Changing this doesn’t change the limits or the default dimstyle after the fact. When
you’re plotting a metric drawing, change the drawing area to Metric in the Plot dialog box
if you are using a release prior to AutoCAD 2005. AutoCAD 2005 made a change in the
plotting process: When you plot a drawing starting with the metric template (or when
you’ve changed the setting for Measurement to 1), and you select a paper size measured in
inches, the plot scale is automatically set to 1:25.4. If you get odd results when plotting,
check this value.
Learn to Use QSELECT
QSELECT is very useful when you’re trying to fix a problem drawing. I once received a
DXF file from the engineer of our city hall. He had generated a large number of points
using GPS equipment to map the location of sewers, drains, manhole covers, and so on.
The problem he had was that all the points and all the text were placed on one layer. The
text height was so large that the text overlapped and was unreadable. See Figure 1.3.
To fix the problem, I did the following:
1. I used QSELECT to select all the points and put them on their own layer, which I
immediately locked to protect the valuable locations generated by the GPS software.
2. I used QSELECT to select all the text (height 294) and change its height to 5 so it
would be manageable.
Figure 1.3
Using QSELECT
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