Layouts and Annotations
What you must understand
Model space versus paper space, viewports, and annotative scaling drive most questions here. Know how to create a layout, place a VIEWPORT, set a standard scale, lock the viewport, and freeze layers per viewport using VP Freeze. Understand annotative objects: text, dimensions, and multileaders with annotative property enabled display at the scales added to the object or drawing. Know dimension styles, associative dimensions, multileader styles, table styles, and how paper space annotation versus model space annotation affects plotted size.
Traps that appear in questions
- Locking a viewport prevents zoom and pan but still allows editing model space objects through it unless the display is locked and you avoid model space editing.
- VP Freeze affects only the current viewport; the global Layer Freeze affects all viewports and model space.
- Annotative objects show at the annotation scale; if a scale is missing from the object's list, it appears at the wrong size or not at all.
- Dimension text override versus dimension style override: one changes a single dimension, the other changes the style.
- Viewport scale list versus annotation scale list are related but separate settings.
Worked example
A detail must plot at 1:20 in one viewport and 1:50 in another. Set the first viewport to 1:20 and the second to 1:50, then add both scales to the annotative text and dimensions. Each viewport displays the annotation at the correct plotted height because the object carries both scales.
Rule of thumb
If annotation plots too large or too small, check the annotation scale list before touching text height; the scale, not the height, is usually wrong.