When creating a drawing in AutoCAD you do not need to worry about scaling. AutoCAD Paperspace takes care of all the nitty gritty’s that you would normally have to worry about the pre-Paperspace era.
When you are done with your drawing and ready to print you will activate your Paperspace by selecting one of your Layout tabs which are situated next to your Modelspace tab.
To rename the tab you right-click on it and select rename. This makes it easier to identify what is represented on the tab and what the paper size is. eg A1 – Ground Floor.
The viewport is where you will position and scale your drawing. This is represented by the solid line enclosing the grid and your drawing that you can see in the left of the viewport.
To position, the drawing in your viewport, double-click on or inside the line representing the viewport or select the model button on the bottom panel. If this is done correctly, then the line will be thick and highlighted.
When the viewport is highlighted, modelspace is activated. What this means is that anything that you draw within the viewport will get recorded in the original space as depicted in the below pictures.
When you zoom or pan while modelspace is activated then you will be scaling the drawing. The scaling can be set in the bottom of the screen.
Once you have the scaling and positioning right, you can deactivate model space by clicking on the model button or double clicking on any space outside the thick highlighted viewport line.
You are now ready to print your drawing.
