Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Doing Dimensions with Style(s)
Creating a usable dimension style that gives you the dimension look you want is the
biggest challenge in using AutoCAD's dimensioning features. Each drawing contains its
own dimension styles, so changes you make to a dimension style in one drawing affect
only that drawing. However, after you get the dimension styles right in a drawing, you
can use it as a template or starting point for later drawings.
A
dimension style
(or
dimstyle
for short) is a collection of drawing settings called
dimen-
sion variables,
which are a special class of the
system variables
that I describe in Chapter
26.
You can create dimension styles with the
annotative
property — the steps to creating
both annotative and non-annotative dimension styles are spelled out in the following
sections. Although it's possible to change individual non-annotative dimensions to an-
notative in the Quick Properties or the Properties palettes, it's far more efficient to as-
sign the annotative property to a dimension style so that all dimensions created in that
style will be annotative.
Borrowing existing dimension styles
If you're lucky enough to work in an office where someone has set up dimension styles
that are appropriate for your industry and project, you can skip the pain and strain of
creating your own dimension styles. Bear in mind, however, that since annotative ob-
jects were introduced in AutoCAD 2008, dimension styles copied from pre-AutoCAD 2008
drawings are not going to be annotative. If the ready-made dimension style that you
need happens to live in another drawing, you can use the DesignCenter palette to copy
it into your drawing. For a refresher on using DesignCenter, see the sections “Using
AutoCAD DesignCenter” and “Copying layers between drawings” in Chapter 6 — just
substitute
Dimstyles.
Creating and managing dimension styles
If you
do
need to create your own dimension styles or you want to tweak ones that you
copied from another drawing, use the Dimension Style Manager dialog box, as shown in
Figure 14-4.
