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changing units in a drawing

Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 5:47 pm
by popsputter
It may be simple but I've been unable to find out how or unable to change units in my drawing. I started out in mm but decided to change units to inches and actually want to display dimensions and rulers in fractions or decimals of an inch. I've gone to "Edit, Drawing Preferences, Units" and changed but everything remained in mm. The ruler scale or divisions might change but it stays metric. The manual says to go to the chapter "Drawing Options" but I don't see a chapter of that title. I've tried to start the drawing over and start in inches but it still comes up in mm. Any suggestions to help a dummy out?

Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 9:05 pm
by andrew
May I ask what makes you think that your drawing is still in mm after changing the unit? The unit of your drawing is almost irrelevant for QCAD in construction mode. QCAD simply works with 'units', whatever a unit is. The drawing unit only plays a role when printing to scale.

The formatting of dimension labels is controlled from the drawing preferences (edit - drawing preferences - dimensions).

changing units in a drawing

Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 9:14 pm
by popsputter
The dimension units are still displayed in the same mm value as when the units were declared in opening the drawing. The units are very relevant to me. I am putting together a document that someone can follow by either reading the print or coding it to run a CNC mill. It is a document that has to be viewed by users as well as customers and is controlled in a quality document control system. Ideally I would like it to display both inches and mm.

Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 9:38 pm
by andrew
I think what you are looking for in this case is the scale function. Note that QCAD does not scale your drawing when changing the unit.

changing units in a drawing

Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 12:16 am
by popsputter
Actually I was looking for something that QCAD I've found out apparently doesn't do. I had done my original drawing in mm and decided to convert to inches. When I changed the units I'd hoped the software would change the dimensions I'd included to inches but it didn't. I've had to restart the drawing and I'm ok now.