Digging deep into content may solve line scale problems

Ever encounter weird line scale problems inside a drawing? It can happen when you use content from external sources that may import line types not present in your default templates.

In the metric world AutoCAD uses line types from the ACADISO.lin. They are scaled versions of the imperial ACAD.lin line types which allow for the typical difference in the AutoCAD Unit/Drawing Unit/Real World scale relationship.

Sometimes you get problems where one, or more, line types is out of scale regardless of how you set the various variables that control line scale. This can be caused by an ACAD.lin derived style being mixed with ACADISO.lin styles in the same file.

It’s easy to fix by reloading all the line types but I wondered how this can happen. The answer is the ACAD.lin line type may be part of external content, blocks or object styles.

When you add the content; the non-ISO line style is imported and used for all subsequent lines of that type. Re-importing the line styles overwrites the definition and corrects the scale. So if it happens regularly, check your source content!

Via; Thanks to Jon for a handy tip – discovered on the Autodesk Discussion Groups.