Properties Area Units

[Anonymous]

In my properties tab (which is always expanded and pinned to the left side of my monitor) the area displays in units of square inches.  This is obviously a funky way to display the area... If I drag the properties palette out it shows the square feet in parenthesis but then it takes up too much of my work space.  Similarly, if I hover over it, it displace, in parenthesis, the square feet.  But I don't want to have to keep moving my curser over there.  It defeats the purpose of having the properties tab pinned open and visible.  Who wants to see a 10' x 10' room displayed as 144000 square inches??  100 square feet is what I want to see.  Please help!

[pendean · Accepted solution]

You do know that if you widen that up a little you'll see what you are loking for, right? Get a second monitor is something to consider if one monitor doesn't allow for this without losing screen real-estate.

What are your UNITS settings? Inches? so that's the primary display.

Any reason you are not using QPM? Add 'area' to the PLINE definition in CUI and have QPM come to you when you need it and go away when you do not. Look up usage in HELP, it's quite powerful.

[Anonymous]

Hey Dean,

  I'd like to know more about QPM  but I've tried looking it up in "Help" in version 2014-2015-2106-2017

Would not find any thing !!!!

[pendean]

My bad, I get used to using acronyms for long command names: look up QUICKPROPERTIES Command

[leothebuilder]

You can add the area of a polyline to QuickProperties but it will give the same result in square inches.

A second monitor to save real estate in your work space is really a saver.

Just buy a cheap one and you'll never regret it.

[pendean]

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Dean.

I do have multiple monitors, but I tend to use my second one (on the left of my ACAD screen) to view PDFs and Notes of what I am working on.  But I think it would be good practice to unsnap the properties toolbar and move it to that screen.  Thanks for the help!

[stevetamplen]

Hello stephen.smith, and welcome to the Forums!

If anyone's post answered your question, please click the Accept as Solution button so other Community users can find the answer to your question more easily.

[stevetamplen]

@Anonymous

Did any of the posts get your problem resolved?

If so, please hit the Accept as Solution button on that post so that more community members can profit from the solution.

[Anonymous]

@stevetamplen, the problem is resolved.  There's still not a great explanation as to why the first area is displayed in square inches with the square feet after in parenthesis, but I have expanded my properties tool bar so I can see the square feet value as well.

Thanks

[JanModR8]

This is a total pain and really needs to be fixed to show square feet... I've had this issue since 2009, and its a total bummer to have to hover over the properties tab (or widen it) to get square footage of a space!

[Kent1Cooper]

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@JanModR8 wrote:

This is a total pain and really needs to be fixed to show square feet...

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The pain is that in the US we are stuck with using feet and inches, in which scenario the drawing unit must be an inch.  It displays areas first in square drawing units, which is entirely logical.  If you were drawing machine parts, you'd think it was totally bogus to show it in square feet.  It's an added bonus that it shows it in square feet at all, so be thankful for that.

If you want it shown in square feet as a primary result, change your units to feet instead of inches.  Civil Engineers and Surveyors do.  But then you won't be able to draw and dimension in feet and inches and fractions.  That would trade one pain for another [what's the thickness of 5/8" drywall in feet?].

The fix is for the US to switch over to the metric system, and come into alignment with essentially the rest of the world.

[Anonymous]

Agreed, USA is backward with regards it's measurement system being in inches etc but, why doesn't AutoCAD have the option to change the units displayed in the properties box, irrespective of the drawing units, anyway?

My Landscape Architectural drawings have been drawn in millimetres yet I wish to interrogate and determine lengths and areas in metres. Each interrogation has to be closely studied and mentally move the decimal point 6 or 3 dec places to the left each time. A right pain!

R

PS When is the USA going to display dates the 'normal' way around also IE increasing in length such as day-month-year rather than month-day-year?

[Uganda51]

Frankly I thought the response from Dean was quite insulting .  The poor guy asked for help and the response was a condescending reply about what he should be doing instead of just answering his question.

The real question is why the properties bar displays square inches at all when the units for area is set to square feet.

[bellovision]

I guess Autodesk has not fixed this problem yet because its been discussed here for 15 months and been a problem much longer.  Anther part of the issue is how can the number of places after the decimal be reduced? I've been trying to figure that out for years, who needs to know any area calc. to the millionth?  Just doing that would make a big difference.  I'm and Architect I'm not designing pressure bearings.  Can anyone tell me how to remove the extra characters?

[neaton]

Change your display UNITS to the necessary precision (UNITS and/or -DWGUNITS command). AutoCAD still calculates to the 8th precision but shows to the specified units.

"Rounding and Precision

When you set display precision units, the product rounds the displayed value up or down to the level of precision you specify. However, the product maintains the actual precision of coordinates and distances regardless of the display precision."

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@bellovision wrote:

I guess Autodesk has not fixed this problem yet because its been discussed here for 15 months and been a problem much longer.  Anther part of the issue is how can the number of places after the decimal be reduced? I've been trying to figure that out for years, who needs to know any area calc. to the millionth?  Just doing that would make a big difference.  I'm and Architect I'm not designing pressure bearings.  Can anyone tell me how to remove the extra characters?

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[Kent1Cooper]

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@bellovision wrote:

.... how can the number of places after the decimal be reduced? I've been trying to figure that out for years, who needs to know any area calc. to the millionth?  ....

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In addition to the Units precision setting, also look into the DIMZIN System Variable, with which you can opt to suppress leading and/or trailing zeros, so that [for instance] a value of 12.34567 can be displayed with all five decimal places if that's what you need, but if it's 12.30000 it can be displayed as just 12.3, even with the precision value set to five decimal places.

[bellovision]

Hello Kent:

Thanks for the intel, but my concern is the number of places after the decimal for area in the properties box. it is this line that causes so many to have to stretch their properties box wide enough to see the size in square feet. Others have asked how to put the square feet first which would also help the problem. Thanks again for the suggestion.

[bellovision]

Hello Neaton:

Thanks for the intel, but my concern is the number of places after the decimal for area in the properties box. It is this line that causes so many to have to stretch their properties box wide enough to see the size in square feet. Others have asked how to put the square feet first which would also help the problem. Thanks again for the suggestion.

[bellovision]

Neaton

I see what you are saying bout the precision, I have tried that, but I like to work in Architectural units set to 1/32".  I like to use 1/32" because it lets me know when there may be a miss que in the line work that can throw everything else off.  When set to 1/32" the area in properties defaults to 0.00000 five places after the point.  Is there a way to use 1/32" precision and have properties only show to the tenth"  That would be great.  Thank you all for the responses.