Printing to Scale

The Print window shows the paper units selected and the scale of the printout. Scale here represents the number of paper units it takes to print one Drawing Unit.

Suppose we have drawn a 10-inch box, which we specified as 10 units when we drew it. Now we want to print it at 0.25 scale. The paper units default to inches, and our drawing is also in inches. Therefore it takes 0.25 inches on paper to represent one inch in the drawing. Our 10-inch box comes out 2.5 inches long on paper.

If our box had been specified at 10 feet instead of 10 inches, then it would take 1/4 inch of paper to represent 1 foot in the drawing. This is a real-world scale of 1/48, or 0.0208333. But to DesignCAD units are just units, so the scale is still shown as 0.25. It still takes 0.25 Paper Units(inches) to represent one Drawing Unit (feet). Printing scale is the length on paper that will rep- resent one Drawing Unit.

We can show it as an equation:

True Scale = Scale/Ratio (where Ratio is the number of paper units in one Drawing Unit)

In the example above, our scale is .25. The paper unit is in inches, the Drawing Unit in feet. Since there are twelve inches in one foot, the Ratio equals twelve.

True Scale = Scale/Ratio = .25/12 = 1/48

What if your paper is too small to print at the scale you need? No problem. DesignCAD can print out your drawing in panels, all to scale, which you can then assemble into a composite drawing.

Here is a list of common Architectural and Engineering scales.

Architectural

Scale Name Actual Decimal Value

1/16” = 1’	0.0625
3/32” = 1’	0.09375
1/8” = 1’.	0.125
3/16” = 1’	0.1875
1/4” = 1’	0.25
3/8” = 1’	0.375
1/2” = 1’	0.5
3/4” = 1’	0.75
1” = 1’	1.0
1.5” = 1’	1.5
3” = 1’	3.0

Engineering

Scale Name Actual Decimal Value

1:1000 0.001

1:500 0.002

1:333 0.003

1:100 0.01

1:50 0.02

1:20 0.05

1:10 0.1

1:5 0.2

1:3 0.33333

1:2 0.5

2:1 2

3:1 3

5:1 5