Autocad Drawing Limits

AutoCAD offers users an infi nite drawing sheet on all sides. When you start a new AutoCAD drawing, your viewpoint will be at 0,0,1. You are looking at the X,Y plane, using a camera’s lens; hence you will see part of your infinite drawing sheet. This part is called the limits. See the following:

Autocad Drawing Limits

In this example, you can see that the limits of the drawing are from 0,0 (lower left-hand corner) to 12,9 (upper right-hand corner). This is your working area. We will learn how to change limits in upcoming chapters.

Units And Spaces

One of the vague facts about AutoCAD is that it does not deal with a certain length unit while drafting. Take note of the following points:

• AutoCAD deals with AutoCAD units.
• An AutoCAD unit can be anything you want. It can be a meter, centimeter, millimeter, inch, or foot.
• All of these options are correct as long as you remember your chosen option and stay consistent in both X and Y.

Also, there are two spaces in AutoCAD, Model Space and Paper Space (Layout). You can switch between the two spaces using the Status Bar.

Paper Space and Model Space button

By default, when you start a new drawing file, you are in Model Space. In Model Space you can create and modify your drawing. Once you are ready to make a hardcopy of your drawing file, switch to the Paper Space (Layouts) so you can prepare your page setup. This is the moment you need to ask, “What is my unit assumption?” so that you can properly scale your drawing. We will discuss printing in a later chapter.