drawing dimension "size"

[moyesboy]

Is there a way to globally make all the annotations and dimensions appear smaller or larger on my drawing?
Like in autocad you set the scale that is applied to all the dimensions, gap, leader overhang, text size, arrow size etc.

It seems not - have to laboriously set the size of every little aspect of the dimensions.

My drawing just got too crowded but I want it to stay a single sheet. I changed the sheet scale but now my dimensions and annotations look stupid big compared to the part...

 

[handleman]

Tools->Options->Document Options tab.

-handleman, CSWP (The new, easy test)

 

[moyesboy]

Tools->Options->Document Options tab.
Yes that is where I can set the size of individual aspects of the dimension - text size, arrow size, spacings etc. But I cannot just globally scale the whole lot up or down.

(unless I am missing an overall scale number somewhere - 2008 SP5)

My workround was to use a larger drawing sheet with the intention of printing it onto smaller paper.

 

[macduff]

Scale it when printing, no?

Colin Fitzpatrick (aka Macduff)
Mechanical Designer
Solidworks 2008 SP 4.0
Dell 490 XP Pro SP 2
Xeon CPU 3.00 GHz 3.00 GB of RAM
nVida Quadro FX 3450 512 MB
3D Connexion-SpaceExplorer

 

[fcsuper]

Are you talking about in the model or on a drawing. In the model, you can set each on of those settings manually. But you can also set your model to dynamically keep all of your annotations and dims the same size on your monitor as you zoom in and out of the model.

Matt Lorono
CAD Engineer/ECN Analyst
Silicon Valley, CA
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources
Co-moderator of Solidworks Yahoo! Group
and Mechnical.Engineering Yahoo! Group

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

With a drawing open, the settings in Tools > Options > Document Properties > Dimensions should affect every dimension in the active drawing.

 

[TheTick]

All dimensions have default settings fr fonts, arrow, and extension lines. If you do not change the default, the dimension properties will change when you change the document properties.

 

[moyesboy]

Yes I can change an indivisual aspect of all the dimensions on the drawing at once, such as arrow size, or text size. But I can't scale all aspects of the dimension up and down at the same time like I can in autocad with "use overall scale of..."
I don't want to make te text smaller without also reducing the arrow size etc.

This is what is achieved by changing the whole sheet size and then scaling it when its printed.

 

[TheTick]

When you change the drawing template to one of a different size, you will see a dialog box asking if you want to scale annotation size and/or position.

 

[fcsuper]

This can be done with a macro (one that as of yet has not been written)

Matt Lorono
CAD Engineer/ECN Analyst
Silicon Valley, CA
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources
Co-moderator of Solidworks Yahoo! Group
and Mechnical.Engineering Yahoo! Group

 

[rfus]

the new 2009 .sldstd is awesome for this. You can load and save any custom drafting standard setting for basically anything into and out of any drawing.

Also, in cases like this, there is something to be said for the use selection filters to globally grab all your dims / tolerances / notes at once accross the sheet. There is also something to be said for assigning your dims to their own layer so they can be quickly accessed and changed. I used to use these two formentioned techniques but the new 09 .sldstd has changed things.

rfus