Dimension are microscopic... please help!

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I'm new to ACAD for Mac and dimensioning is giving me a giant headache. When I dimension anything, the measurement text is unreadable. If I magnify it 100X with my mouse, I can see that there is a number. I've tried changing everything I can imagine (text height, scale), and nothing works. I am using metric and have my dimension style on Standard. I've tried changing it to Annotative, but that doesn't help matters.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

p.s. I need instructions in very basic language -- assume I know nothing. Thanks!

[khedeks]

Hi Marisol,

Could you send me the DWG file you are working with? That will help me to track down the issue.

Thanks,

Shekhar Khedekar

AutoCAD User Experience

shekhar (at) autodesk (dot) com

[Anonymous]

Of course. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Shekhar,

I should have sent you the file with an attempt at dimensioning. Here is a new version. It is right under the heading ("here is the dimension"), in the top left.

Many thanks!

[khedeks]

Ok, got it.

Looks like the text height in the Dimension Style was too small. To correct this, go to:

1. Format menu > Dimension style

2. Select "Standard" and choose "Modify" from the settings (gear) menu

3. On the text tab, change the "Text height" to 100, click OK, then Close

The text should now be visible. 

Since you are in metric, you can also change the units that are displayed in the style, the spacing of the lines, etc to look more as you want them. It looks like the drawing was started in a template set to inches/feet and then used for a metric drawing, which explains the tiny text, small gaps, and feet/inch formatting. In the future, you can start from the acadiso.dwt template for a better result, or save out a drawing template (DWT in the "Save as..." dialog) when you set this drawing to your liking.

Let me know if that works for you.

Thanks,

Shekhar

[Anonymous]

Perfect! Thanks so much... I was going nuts with this. 

As for the templates, I understand what you're saying about starting a new document. But if I want to save this file in the correct format, I would do a Save As to .dwt and that would fix everything? I don't think I'm clear on what you mean.

[khedeks · Accepted solution]

Yes, if you save this file as a DWT, then you can start your next drawing from the DWT and it will have the dimension style you edited in it, all ready to go.

This is more for the future when you are starting a new drawing, to save you some setup time of tweaking the dimension style.

-shekhar

[Anonymous]

Thanks again!