Label the scale of individual viewports

A reader asked me how to label the scale of individual viewports when they have different scales. You can use fields to accomplish this. Here’s a drawing with 2 viewports, one on the left and one on the right. Each one uses a different scale.

Here are the steps to label each viewport:

1. On the layout tab, start the MTEXT command. At the prompts, specify 2 opposite corners of the boundary box.
2. If necessary, set the font size and text style in the Style panel of the Text Editor tab. Remember that your text should now be real size, not scaled, as it would be in model space.  That’s because you’re placing the text in paper space. You may also need to resize the text editor box.
3. Right-click inside the text area and choose Insert Field.
4. In the Field dialog box, from the Field Category list, choose Objects. Then choose Object in the box below.
5. Under Object Type, click the Select Object button and select the viewport by clicking its border.
6. Under Property, choose Standard Scale if that’s what you used; otherwise, choose Custom Scale.
7. On the right, choose a format if you want; I left this option at (none).

8. Click OK to close the dialog box.
9. Click outside the text editor box to place the label. Here’s the result:

Do you use this method to label viewport scales? Or do you do something else? Leave a comment!

By Ellen Finkelstein