topic Re: Scale is inaccurate in Viewport in AutoCAD Forum

Scale is inaccurate in Viewport

jgottschalkBT79W — Fri, 19 May 2023 12:24:06 GMT

I'm having trouble when putting my drawing inside a view port of the layout, the scale of the drawing loses accuracy.

Everything in my drawing is to the correct dimension and was drawn at 1:1. When I put the layout of the drawing in an 11x17 the scale no longer holds up. The scale that ends up fitting the drawing page ends up being 1:600 however it's far from accurate. I've checked the plot setting to ensure a 1:1 plot scale and the layout plot area before plotting and even after dimensioning the plot it should be around 1:50 that fits the drawing. i have attached a few screen shots to help clarify my problem. Thank you. 11x17 page is measuring correctlyplot settingsunit settingsthe drawing in model with everything sized and proportionaldwg unit commandEven though the drawing shows this accurately at 33', the scale shows this at over 200'

Re: Scale is inaccurate in Viewport

chriscowgill7373 — Fri, 19 May 2023 12:58:05 GMT

600 is 50×12. So I would say it is a foot/inches conversion to feet the scale is eith 1"=50' or 1"=600" which is the same.

Re: Scale is inaccurate in Viewport

jgottschalkBT79W — Fri, 19 May 2023 13:15:44 GMT

so are you saying that when the scale is set to 1:50 the scale is actually 1:4.2. and if so how can I make the conversion so that the scale is accurate?

Re: Scale is inaccurate in Viewport

paullimapa — Fri, 19 May 2023 13:45:24 GMT

Since this is an imperial (foot-inch) drawing I would choose one of the standard foot-inch scales for the vport from the list like 1/8”=1’-0” or if that doesn’t fit then try something smaller like 1/16”=1’-0”

Re: Scale is inaccurate in Viewport

jgottschalkBT79W — Fri, 19 May 2023 14:03:17 GMT

Thanks a 1/32 scale does fine! However how would I go about getting the engineering scales accurate?

Re: Scale is inaccurate in Viewport

paullimapa — Fri, 19 May 2023 14:07:06 GMT

Not sure what you mean by accurate. If the drawing is drawn accurately at 1 to 1 then selecting those Engineering scales from the list should give you an accurate output copy. Perhaps you can share your drawing for everyone to take a look?

Re: Scale is inaccurate in Viewport

dany_rochefort — Fri, 19 May 2023 15:04:18 GMT

@jgottschalkBT79W Let me break this down REAL SIMPLE on how to easily find the correct scale as per any paper size used.

1 - In model space draw a rectangle = to the size of the paper you are using. In your case it's 11x17. So draw a rectangle 11x17 in model space.

2 - Scale your 11x17 rectangle by x 600 and overlay that onto your work in model space.

Does it fit correctly ? If yes, than the best scale is 1:600 on a 11x17 sheet.

Does it fit correctly ? If no, undo command to bring back your rectangle to 11x17 and try again with another scale.

For example : 1:500 or 1:700 depending on what was the result of your first attempt.

From that, you can infer whatever the imperial equivalent scale is.

Re: Scale is inaccurate in Viewport

chriscowgill7373 — Fri, 19 May 2023 19:43:02 GMT

Your drawing is drawn in inches, there are 12 inches in a foot. You wont be able to get enginnering scales to work with it, unless you scale everything down by 12 and work in feet, not inches.

Re: Scale is inaccurate in Viewport

Jason_SniderWUKJ8 — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 13:27:48 GMT

Thanks, this method helped me out with not only viewports but properly sized text inside viewports.