Setting a system variable on the tool palette

You can adjust the dimension (the DIMSCALE system variable) or plot scale of a tool that you created by dragging a block, hatch, or xref from a drawing. To do so, right-click the tool and choose Properties. Click the Auxiliary Scale item. Then click the down arrow that appears at the right and choose either Dimscale or Plot Scale. Click OK. From now on, the item comes into your drawing at the scale you’ve set in your drawing.

But what if you’d like to change a different system variable, such as LTSCALE? Here’s how:

1. In AutoCAD, right click the tool and choose Properties. Choose DIMSCALE from the Auxiliary Scale drop-down list.
2. Choose Tools>Options and click the Files tab. Go to Tool Palettes File Locations to find the location of the Tool Palette ATC files.
3. Close AutoCAD and use Windows Explorer to navigate to the Tool Palette ATC files.
4. Use Notepad to open the ATC file named after your tool palette.
5. Find DIMSCALE assigned to your block and replace it with the system variable that you want to assign, such as LTSCALE. Save the file.
6. Open AutoCAD and check your Auxiliary scale value. It should now read the name of the system variable you chose, such as LTSCALE.

Thanks to Misha Belilovskiy of Autodesk for this tip.

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Ellen Finkelstein

Ellen Finkelstein is the author of the best-selling AutoCAD & AutoCAD LT Bible, which started with R14. Ellen has written extensively on AutoCAD, including articles for Autodesk’s website and features for AutoCAD’s Help system. Ellen’s first book was AutoCAD For Dummies Quick Reference.

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