Microsoft KB Archive/271504

= Visio2000: How to Use Drawing Scale =

Article ID: 271504

Article Last Modified on 1/29/2007

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Visio 2000 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Visio 2000 Professional Edition
 * Microsoft Visio 2000 Technical Edition
 * Microsoft Visio 2000 Enterprise Edition

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This article was previously published under Q271504



SUMMARY
This article answers frequently asked questions about how to use drawing scale in Visio 2000.



What Is the Purpose of Drawing Scale?
Whenever you need to re-create the exact spatial relationships--as well as relate objects to one another--of very small or very large objects in the space of a drawing page, you must set a drawing scale. When a drawing is made for real-world objects that are larger than paper size, you must draw to scale. For example, 1 inch on the drawing page of an office layout might represent 1 foot of the actual office.

How Do I Set Drawing Scale?
When you start a drawing by opening a solution, the drawing scale and measurement units are already set for you. Some solutions, however (such as the Basic Flowchart solution), are unscaled because you use them to create abstract drawings that do not represent actual objects in the real world.

You can set the drawing scale in any drawing. If you want to work with a different drawing scale, you can change the setting.

To set drawing scale:
 * On the File menu, click Page Setup, and then click the Drawing Scale tab.

In a multiple-page drawing, each page can have a different scale. The rulers in each of these drawings reflect their different drawing scales.

What Issues Should I know About?
When you set a drawing scale, keep the following points in mind:
 * Changing a page's drawing scale does not change any background pages assigned to that page; therefore, you must set their drawing scale separately if you want the foreground and background pages to match. This feature allows a single file to contain multiple drawing scales.
 * Most masters are designed for drawings that have a scale of 1:1. An instance of a master is automatically adjusted if its drawing scale is more than eight times larger or smaller than the drawing scale of the page. If the scales differ less, the shape is not adjusted.
 * If you change the drawing scale, the corresponding real-world size of an object does not change. Visio updates the drawing so that the object takes up more or less space on the page, depending on your change.

