Beginning AutoCAD 2018. Cheryl R. Shrock

Drawing Setup

      When drawing with a computer, you must “set up your drawing area” just as you would on your drawing board if you were drawing with pencil and paper. You must decide what size paper you will need, what Units of measurement you will use (feet and inches or decimals, etc) and how precise you need to be. In CAD these decisions are called “Setting the Drawing Limits, Units and Precision”.

       Drawing Limits

      Consider the drawing limits as the size of the paper you will be drawing on. You will first be asked to define where the lower left corner should be placed, then the upper right corner, similar to drawing a Rectangle. An 11” × 8.5” or 297 mm × 210 mm piece of paper would have a lower left corner of and an upper right corner of 11, 8.5, or 297, 210. (11 or 297 is the horizontal measurement X-axis, and 8.5 or 210 is the vertical measurement Y-axis.)

       How to Set the Drawing Limits

       Example:

      1. Start a New drawing using either the inch-helper.dwt or the metric-helper.dwt (Refer to page 2-6).

      2. Select the Drawing Limits command by typing: Limits and then press <enter>.

      3. The following prompt will appear:

      Command: ‘_limits

      Reset Model space limits:

      Specify lower left corner or [ON/OFF] <0.0000,0.0000>:

      4. Type the X,Y coordinates 0,0 <enter> for the new lower left corner location of your piece of paper .

      5. The following prompt will appear:

      Specify upper right corner <12.0000, 9.000:>0

      6. Type the X,Y coordinates 36,24 <enter> if you are using the inch template, or 914.4,609.6 <enter> if you are using the metric template, for the new upper right corner of your piece of paper. Make sure you separate the two figures with a comma.

      Note: Visually the screen has not changed. Do the next step and it will.

      7. This next step is very important:

      Type Z <enter> A <enter> to make the screen display the new drawing limits. (This is the shortcut for Zoom / All. Refer to page 4-9)