Scale

- On my screen I have some one-by-one squares that I need to scale to different sizes. One needs to be half the size it currently is. The other twice the size. To accomplish this I'm going to use the scale command. We'll find the command here under the modify tool set. I'll select my objects and then press return so that AutoCAD know I'm done selecting objects. For my base point I'm going to use the lower left corner point here and then drag my cursor away. Notice that the further away from the base point that I get the larger my square becomes.

And the closer I get the smaller it becomes. I'm going to pick a point out here right about here and click. Now I did mention that I needed specific sizes for these squares. So we're going to repeat the process on the other square by typing in SC and return. And then we'll select our square press return. For the base point this time I'm going to use the upper-right corner point. And instead of clicking a point I'm going to type in a specific scale factor. For the scale factor remember that one is equal to 100%.

So anything smaller than one will scale my object smaller. Anything larger than one will increase its size. So again I'm going to type in .5 and press return. Now for my first square I still need to get it to a specific size. So I'm going to grab my square and get into the scale command one more time. This time I'm going to use the midpoint here where the geometric center. Now instead of typing in a scale factor because I don't really know how big or small to make this I'm going to type in R for reference and press return.

For the reference length AutoCAD is looking for two points on the square itself. So I'm going to choose this point here and this point here. Now AutoCAD needs a new length. So it needs me to specify exactly how far apart those two points that I picked need to be. In my case they need to be two units apart. So I'm going to type in two and press return. I'm going to use the inquiry tool for distance to double-check and make sure yes okay I do have two and over here this should be .5 There we are.

So my scale command worked. The scale command can help you adjust your drawings by increasing or decreasing their size in a uniform way relieving you from having to redraw your objects bigger or smaller.