Blocks, text, dimensions and leaders
Survey symbols at real ground size, and the annotation that makes a plan readable.
4 min read
Blocks
- Type I or DDINSERT, or choose Blocks on the ribbon.
- Pick a symbol, twenty-one ship with the product, plus any your organization has made.
- Place it. It is drawn at its real ground size, so it scales with the drawing like everything else surveyed.
- Give it attributes if it takes them, an id, a rim elevation, and they draw with it.
Make a block from geometry you have already drawn with B. Explode one back into its geometry with X.
Annotation
- Text and multiline text, sized in millimetres on the sheet.
- Dimensions, aligned, linear, radial, measuring the real geometry.
- Multileaders, for a note pointing at a thing.
- Every one of them takes the colour and text height showing in the ribbon when you place it, so what lands is what you just chose.
Annotation scale
Text is sized for the sheet, not the ground. The annotation scale in the status bar decides how big 2.5 mm of text is on the canvas, set it to the scale you intend to plot at and what you see is what prints.
Read next
- Drawing: tools, the command line and snapsHow to draw, how to be quick about it, and how to make things land exactly where you mean.
- Sheets: setting one up and plotting itA sheet at a real scale, with a title block, a legend and your logo: then a PDF you can prove.
- Command referenceEvery command, its alias, and what it does: the list to keep open while you learn.
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