Michael’s Corner

Michael's Corner is a monthly publication written by Michael E. Beall, Autodesk Authorized Author and peripatetic AutoCAD trainer. Michael travels all over the USA, bringing his fantastic experience and great understanding of AutoCAD to his clients. Michael's Corner brings together many of the tips, tricks and methods developed during these training sessions for the benefit of all users.

Michael's Corner provides something for every AutoCAD user. Every month, a number of articles cover a wide range of topics, suitable for users at all levels, including "The Basics" for those just starting out. Essentially, the aim of Michael's Corner is to help all AutoCAD users work smarter and faster.

This month…

From the Vault

Originally published January 2006

Viewports in a Layout

[Note: I'm just going to talk about viewports here, so to learn more about layouts, see The Basics, August 2005.] When you create a viewport in a layout, you are doing nothing more than cutting a hole in the "paper" through which you see the objects on the Model tab. In this procedure, you will need a drawing with some objects in Model Space so you can see them through the viewport you will create.

Instructions to Create a Layout Viewport

1. Right-click on a layout tab and click New Layout to create Layout x, then click on that layout tab.
2. If the Page Setup or Page Setup Manager dialog box opens, click OK to close them and go straight to the layout. If you already have a viewport, erase it … but don't panic.

3. Open the Viewports toolbar, a critically important element when working with layouts.
4. On the Viewports toolbar, click Single Viewport which will create a rectangular viewport.
5. Pick the two diagonal corners of the viewport such that the viewport is in the upper left quadrant of the layout. After picking the second corner of the viewport, AutoCAD will display the extents of the objects on the Model tab.

After creating the viewport you are still in the layout and anything you do will be done on the layout tab. You could add a rectangle as the sheet border, then add text. At this point you can also use the Move or Copy commands to move or copy the viewport to another location.

Instructions to Display the Viewport Objects to Scale

1. To adjust the display of the Model Space objects in the viewport, double-click inside the viewport to switch to Model Space. To prove to yourself that you are only in that viewport, zoom or pan the drawing around with the commands or your wheel mouse. [When you want to return to the layout, double-click anywhere outside the viewport.]
2. Use Zoom Extents to return your drawing to the full viewport display.
3. On the Viewports toolbar, click the dropdown list to display the available predefined plot scales. If your drawing is architectural, scroll down and see what 1/8" = 1'-0" does. If you're working on a machine part, you may want to try 1:2 or 1:4. For those of you with a map, 1:100 may be a good starting point. If you don't see what you want, type in a ratio such as 1:500.

And that, my friends, is the short version of viewports in a layout. I'll share some more with you next month, but here are some parting suggestions.

Viewport Suggestions

1. Since a viewport is created on the layer that's current when you click Single Viewport, give these a thought: Before creating your viewport, in the Layer Properties Manager, create a new layer named something like VPorts , make it Red, and set it to No Plot. Add that layer to your template.

2. Remember when you're in the layout, you can only select the viewport frame, not the Model Space objects.
3. You can have more than one viewport and each viewport can have it's own plot scale. Seriously.

4. To freeze layers in only one viewport on the layout: If you have more than one viewport in a layout, double-click in the desired viewport, then in the Layers dropdown list, use the Freeze/Thaw in Current Viewport icon (the small sunshine with the box beside it). Cool, huh?

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