block pastes into other document at wrong scale

[Anonymous]

I have a document (A) with house types on it which are blocks as well as driveways and paths which are lines. I also have my site file (B) which I want to copy and paste these house types into, however, when I do, the blocks come in 1000x bigger than they are supposed to as well as all on top of one another. The lines for paths and driveways copy and paste as they should at the right scale and in the right place in relation to one another. I fixed them manually in file B and copied and pasted them back to see what would happen and the lines were correct again, however the blocks came in 1000 times smaller than they were supposed to.

I've tried allsorts to try and fix this. The "scale objects inserted from other drawings" box is currently unchecked in both files in the drawing setup settings - I've also tried them both checked and it didn't make any difference.

I've tried changing the INSUNITS, INSUNITSDEFSOURCE, and INSUNITSDEFTARGET settings all to 0 in both files.

The blocks unit is unitless therefore I have set the insertion units in settings to unitless, again in both drawings. I've also tried this in meters and if didn't fix it. I've also triple checked my scales and units are set to 1 unit = 1m so 1:1 although in my file it is called 1:1_1 as Cad kept defaulting to the wrong scale so I had to create a new one. The drawing sizes are correct in both drawings I just don't understand why the blocks are changing scale when inserted. I've attached some simplified versions of the files. Can anyone shed any light on this please?

[Cadologist · Accepted solution]

Good morning Laura,

So I tested out your two drawings and you are correct, all unit variables (including system) are matching and -DWGUNITS has the scale upon insert set to OFF (which is correct).

I did a test, in drawing B, I 'deleted' the instance of that detail (desk?) then did a PURGE on the drawing. Once complete, I copied the detail (from drawing A and pasted into B) and it was inserted at the correct scale.

I am wondering if drawing A has a bad instance of those blocks? Because multiple blocks are used in that configuration it is hard to determine the actual cause, however if you do delete, purge then copy back in, they are inserted at the correct scale.

I'll see what else I can figure out, this one has me curious as I have spent considerable time dealing with units (metres and millmetres, as well as imperial) to get everything to 'play' nicely in our corporate standard.

[Anonymous]

Brilliant! I knew it would be a simple fix but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was. I tried what you said in the test files first and it worked perfectly, then I tried it on my actual site file I've been working in with scaled down models. This took a little longer as I couldn't purge the garages (the blocks are houses by the way) but I fixed that and again it worked perfectly!

A possible reason for them becoming a bad instance is that I might have accidentally set the inserted objects to meters instead of unitless which may have overridden the blocks unitless settings which I corrected but I'm guessing the damage must have already been done. Not sure why that made the scales off by so much however as both files were in meters anyway and the blocks at the correct scale. But your fix worked a treat so thank you very much!

[Cadologist]

Morning Laura, so glad it was a relatively simple fix. These unit issues can be a real headache at times and quite the task to resolve. Glad I was able to assist!