A senior drafter showed me a trick with paper space that blew my mind

I was working on a big commercial project in Phoenix last month, and got stuck on scaling some details in AutoCAD. I'd been doing it the slow way for like 2 years, just eyeballing viewports. Then Dave, this older guy who's been drafting since the 80s, came over and showed me how to lock the viewport scale with a simple command. He even showed me how to set up a template with preset scales for different sheet sizes. I felt kind of dumb for not knowing it sooner, but honestly it saved me like 4 hours on that one project. Has anyone else had a veteran drafter show them a trick that totally changed their workflow, or is it just me?

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the_robert4mo ago

Man that's a good one. I wonder if the old school guys from back then actually knew more tricks than they let on but just kept quiet about it to feel important.

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troy_ross4mo ago

Honestly I kinda doubt they were sitting on some secret vault of knowledge. Probably just a couple guys who got lucky and made it sound deeper than it was.

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