Annotative scales and paper-space dimensions on a detail sheet
A detail sheet shows the same wall section three times: an enlarged 1:20 viewport and two plan viewports at 1:100 and 1:50. All model-space annotation is annotative with a 2.5 mm plotted height. The 1:20 and 1:100 viewports look correct. In the 1:50 viewport the callout text has disappeared, and a colleague's paper-space dimension placed over that viewport reads 96 where the wall is 4,800 mm long. DIST inside the viewport measures the wall correctly. The sheet must be issued tonight, and the same wall appears on four more sheets.
1. Diagnose the missing callouts in the 1:50 viewport and give the checks in the order you would run them.
Read the worked answer
Annotative objects display only at the scales on their own scale list. The other two viewports working correctly is the clue: the objects carry 1:20 and 1:100 but not 1:50.
Checks, in order.
- Select a callout; open Properties > Annotative Scale, or run OBJECTSCALE. If 1:50 is absent, the object is simply not drawn at that viewport scale. Add it to that object, or add it once through the drawing's scale list so future annotation inherits it.
- Check the viewport's annotation scale, not just its zoom. A viewport can be zoomed to look like 1:50 while its annotation scale still reads 1:100 - that mismatch is the most common cause of annotation that is the right size but missing, or present but wrong-sized. Lock the viewport after setting it.
- Check ANNOALLVISIBLE and whether the automatic add-scale toggle (ANNOAUTOSCALE) is on. Turning it on fixes tonight's problem and scatters every scale into every annotative object's list, which is why many offices keep it off and manage scales deliberately.
Do not fix this with TEXTEDIT or by scaling the text: the next viewport change breaks it again, invisibly.
2. Explain the 96 versus 4,800 mm dimension and recommend a fix that will hold on the four remaining sheets.
Read the worked answer
Why 96. Paper-space dimensions measure paper. A 4,800 mm wall at 1:50 is 96 mm on the sheet, so a dimension drawn over the viewport with a linear scale factor of 1 reports the paper distance. The dimension is behaving correctly; it is measuring in the wrong space.
Options.
- Fastest: set the dimension's linear scale factor (DIMLFAC) to 50. Set it on the dimension, not the style, if other dimensions on the sheet sit over viewports at other scales - a style-wide 50 will corrupt the 1:20 and 1:100 dimensions.
- Better: dimension in model space with annotative dimensions. The value is always true, and the same wall on four more sheets needs no per-sheet correction.
- Never: override the text with the correct number. It looks right tonight and becomes a false record the first time the wall moves.
Verify. Check one known value on each sheet: a 4,800 mm wall must read 4800. If you fixed it by DIMLFAC, confirm the dimension still follows the geometry when you stretch it.
3. The four remaining sheets will reuse this wall. What would you standardise now, before tonight's issue, and what would you deliberately not do?
Read the worked answer
Standardise.
- Add 1:50 (and any other required viewport scales) to the drawing's scale list once, and put that list in the template, so nobody has to remember OBJECTSCALE per object.
- One dimension style for model-space annotative dimensions, with text height set to the plotted height (2.5 mm) and annotative switched on. Style proliferation is what makes four more sheets drift.
- A note in the sheet file or a page-setup-level convention stating that dimensions live in model space and viewports are locked at their stated scale.
Do not. Do not copy the already-corrected viewport from sheet to sheet as a shortcut and re-point it - annotation scale and viewport scale travel together, and re-pointing leaves one of them stale. Do not convert everything to non-annotative and set DIMSCALE per viewport either: DIMSCALE is a style-level, drawing-wide value and does not vary by viewport, which is precisely the problem annotative annotation exists to solve.