How To Scale Drawing In Solidworks

SOLIDWORKS 2020 makes it easier to assign custom drawing scales for both the overall sheet properties and individual drawing views. Now you can type in the custom scale size directly into the User Defined dialog.

Setting Custom Scales for Drawing Sheets

In SOLIDWORKS 2019, the status bar at the bottom right provided a pop-up to select a list of commonly used scales. If you needed a custom scale, it required jumping into the Sheet Properties where you could type in the scale values.

SOLIDWORKS 2019 Drawing Sheet Scale

SOLIDWORKS 2020 now gives a 'User Defined' option which brings up a dialog where you can type in the value directly. Use the format x:x or x/x in the entry field.

SOLIDWORKS 2020 Drawing Sheet Scale

SOLIDWORKS 2020 User Defined Scale Dialog Window

SOLIDWORKS 2020 User Defined Scale Dialog

Setting Custom Scales for Drawing Views

Individual drawing views can have a custom scale. Selecting a view gives the scale options in the PropertyManager. SOLIDWORKS 2019 has the 'Use custom scale' option however it required scrolling up in the list of commonly used values to 'User Defined' to enter a custom size.

SOLIDWORKS 2019 Drawing View Custom Scale

SOLIDWORKS 2020 now allows you to type in a value directly into the entry field as soon as you select 'Use custom scale'. Use the format x:x or x/x in the entry field.

SOLIDWORKS 2020 Drawing View Custom Scale

Modifying the List of Available Scales

If there are specific scales that are commonly used but not in the list, you can now modify the available scales through a Drawing Scales text file. This can also be helpful to remove scales that are never used to reduce the picklist size.

The location of the Drawing Scales text file is found under Tools > Options > System Options > File Locations > Drawing Scale Standards. By default this will be located under C:\Program Files\SOLIDWORKS Corp\SOLIDWORKS\lang\english.

SOLIDWORKS 2020 Drawing Scale Standards File Location

Within the text file 'drawingscales.txt' you can add and remove available scales for each drawing standard.

SOLIDWORKS 2020 Drawing Scale Standards