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AutoCAD Tips & Tutorials

Change linetype spacing in three ways

A noncontinuous linetype consists of dots, dashes, and spaces. Sometimes, when you draw a line with such a linetype, the spacing isn't what you want. Either the dots or dashes are too far apart, or they are so close together that the line appears continuous.

There are three ways to address this problem:

Change the linetype

Several linetypes come in variations of short, medium, and long. An example is Dashed, Dashed2, and Dashedx2. Sometimes, all you need to do is change the linetype.

Change the global linetype scale

Sometimes the overall scale for linetypes is wrong. This is very common in architectural drawings, which deal with large objects like houses. To change the linetype scale, choose Format > Linetype. In the Linetype Manager, click Show Details if the bottom of the dialog box isn't displayed. You should see a Details section with a Global Scale Factor text box. Changing this value (the LTSCALE system variable) changes every noncontinuous linetype in the drawing. The default value is 1.0. Remember:

  • Make the scale larger to get larger spacing (fewer repetitions of the pattern)
  • Make the scale smaller to get shorter spacing

Generally, you want to use the same value that you use for other scaled objects. For example, a typical linetype scale for a house might be 24 or 48.

Change the object linetype scale

You can change the linetype scale for an individual object. Open the Linetype Manager again and change the value for the Current Object Scale text box (the CELTSCALE system variable). Then draw the line. Be sure to change this value back to the default 1 if you don't want the value you just entered to apply to other new objects.

To change the linetype scale for an existing object, select it and open the Properties palette. Change the value in the Linetype Scale item.

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