Quickly and Easily Changing the SOLIDWORKS Drawing Scale

I often feel that the best tricks and functionality regarding SOLIDWORKS, or any software package for that matter, are the subtle ones. The subtle tricks that aren’t covered in user guides or tutorials. Of course, if you watch how your colleagues use SOLIDWORKS or attend a User Group meeting or take a SOLIDWORKS Training course, you are going to pick up a lot of these tricks. Here is one of my favorites that eluded me for many years: You are probably aware of the unit selection pop-up menu that appears in the status bar when editing a part? It allows you to easily switch between inches and millimeters on your model with just two simple clicks. Would you believe there is another one for SOLIDWORKS Drawing Scale?

1:2 Scale

Being on the Status Bar, you could be forgiven for thinking this is just showing you the status. You can also change SOLIDWORKS Drawing Scale. Behold:

1:1 Scale

You will notice that my drawing views have changed the scale between the two screenshots. This requires that the drawing views are set to “Use Sheet Scale.” If I have opted to use a custom scale for my drawing views, this will not change the size of my drawing views, obviously.

With Soldiworks 2020, the ability to change drawing views to a user-specified scale is also possible. For more details, please see the following article: SOLIDWORKS 2020 Custom Scales for Drawing Sheets and Views