Styles and Annotation Scales
Control how text, dimensions and points look across a whole drawing with named styles, set the drawing scale so annotation prints the right size, and use annotative objects to suit several scales at once.
This chapter solves two problems that bite everyone eventually.
The first is consistency. You want every dimension in a drawing to look the same, and to change them all at once when the standard changes. That is what styles are for.
The second is scale. A note that reads nicely on paper has to be drawn enormous in a model that prints at 1:50 — and differently enormous if the same note also appears at 1:20. That is what the drawing scale and annotative objects are for.
Prerequisites
- You can place text and dimensions — see Working with Text and Dimensioning a Drawing.
Styles
A style is a named set of settings that objects share. Change the style and everything using it changes with it. Rename it and they follow.
Text styles
Format ▸ Text Styles — a font, a width factor (how stretched or squashed the letters are) and a slant.
Note what is not in that list: height. A piece of text carries its own height, so two notes in the same style can be different sizes.
Standard is built in and uses Noto Sans, which ships with Pingendum 2D. That matters more than it sounds: text measures identically on every machine, so a drawing will not reflow because a colleague is missing a font.
The dialog offers New, Rename, Delete (refused while anything is using the style), the settings themselves, and Set Current for new text. OK applies everything as one undo step.
Dimension styles
Format ▸ Dimension Styles — arrows, text, the gaps and overshoots of extension lines, how many decimal places, tolerances, and centre marks. ISO and ANSI are built in.
A sample updates as you change each setting, so you can see what you are doing instead of guessing from the field names.
The sizes here are paper sizes, and they are multiplied by the drawing's scale — which is the next section.
Point style
Format ▸ Point Style — unlike the other two, there is one point style for the whole drawing, not a set of named ones. It decides how point objects are drawn.
If points seem to be missing from a drawing, this is nearly always why: the style is set to the invisible one.
The drawing scale
Format ▸ Drawing Scale, or the scale button on the status bar.
Two different settings get confused here, so take them one at a time.
Units (Format ▸ Units, UN) says what your numbers mean — whether 4400 is 4400 millimetres or 4400 inches. Changing it changes the meaning, not the numbers.
The drawing scale says what the model prints at — 1:50, 1:20, 1:1. It matters long before you print, because everything meant to be read on paper is sized in paper millimetres and then multiplied by that scale:
| Object | Sized in paper mm | So at 1:50, in the model |
|---|---|---|
| Text 2.5 mm high | 2.5 | 125 mm |
| A dimension's text and arrows | from its style | × 50 |
| A hatch pattern at scale 1 | its printed size | × 50 |
| A dash in a dashed linetype | its printed length | × 50 |
Set the scale before you annotate
Dimensions, hatches and dashes all follow a later change of scale.
Text keeps the height it was placed at. So if you write a page of notes and then change the scale, the notes will be the one thing that is wrong.
The status bar's scale button offers the standard scales; Custom… takes one typed, like 1:75.
A sheet is always 1:1 — it is a piece of paper. Its viewports carry scales of their own. See Model Space and Sheets.
Annotative objects
Here is the problem these exist to solve.
A note 2.5 mm high on paper needs to be 125 mm tall in the model at 1:50 — but 50 mm at 1:20. If one sheet carries viewports at both scales, no single size is right in both of them.
An annotative object carries a separate copy for each scale it should appear at, each one the right size, each with its own position. Text, dimensions, leaders, hatches and block references can all be annotative.
- In a viewport, it shows the copy for that viewport's scale.
- In the model, it shows the copy for the status bar's annotation scale.
- If it has no copy for the current scale, it is not shown at all — which is the usual explanation for annotation that has apparently vanished.
Managing the scales an object carries
Annotate ▸ Annotation Scales adds or removes the scales the selected annotative objects appear at. The same control is the Scales button in the Properties panel.
Line up scales puts every scale's copy back where the first one sits — useful after you have dragged one copy clear of something and want the others to catch up.
The dialog lists the standard scales as tick boxes — 10:1 down to 1:200 — with Add… for one that is not listed.
It works on a selection, so select the annotative objects first. With nothing suitable picked it says "Select annotative objects first, to choose their scales."
Blocks: tick Annotative, then insert a fresh copy
A block behaves annotatively only where its reference carries the scales, and that happens when you place one with Insert Block.
If you make a block with Create Block and leave Replace them with the block selected, the reference left behind in its place is not annotative, even though the definition is — and Annotation Scales will decline it. Insert a new copy and use that one.
Troubleshooting
| What you see | Why |
|---|---|
| Text came out the wrong size after you changed the scale | Text keeps the height it was placed at. Dimensions and hatches follow the scale; text does not |
| Annotative text has disappeared | It carries no copy for the current annotation scale or viewport scale — add that scale |
| Points are invisible | The drawing's point style is set to the invisible one |
| A style will not delete | Something in the drawing is still using it |
| A hatch is far too coarse or too fine | Its pattern scale is multiplied by the drawing scale — see Hatching an Area |
Next Steps
Next: Model Space and Sheets
Attributes and Fields
Make blocks carry information that changes from copy to copy, and text that fills itself in from the drawing — then extract it all to a spreadsheet as a schedule.
Model Space and Sheets
Draw at full size in model space, then lay that drawing out for printing on sheets — with viewports showing the model at a chosen scale, their own layer visibility, and a title block around them.