When you are working on some projects in AutoCAD, you may need to change a drawing’s units. It comes in imperial units which are different for different countries, depending on the standard established in the specific region. So, as the units can be changed in AutoCAD, we have found and wrote down the answer to the question of how to change the units in AutoCAD? If you are not familiar with this option, here are some simple solutions in the following.
See also: How to trim in AutoCAD
Units in AutoCAD
You can have your drawings in AutoCAD expressed in many units. AutoCAD supports drawing in inches, microinches, feet, miles, millimeters, kilometers, yards, microns, decimeters, hectometers, gigameters, dekameters, light-years, parsecs or astronomical units. If your drawings and objects measure you are working at is expressed in any of these units, you can change it to another one in a couple of ways AutoCAD provides you. These ways are to use – DWGUNITS command or change the unit by blocking import.
-DWGUNITS command
Here is a command for changing units in AutoCAD and it is rated as the easiest one. But you need to know it will work for the versions of AutoCAD from 2009 and later.
To start, you need to open the “Sample.DWG” drawing in the imperial unit and then write the -DWGUNITS to the line we use to call the command line. Before you type in the command, make sure that you have typed in the dash. To confirm, squeeze the Enter key on your keyboard. This will lead you to a sort of window which will show up.
There you will see the list of units, and to choose which one to use, type the order number. The unit you choose will be set and applied. Depending on the unit you set, the program may be asking you some questions concerning your objects on the drawing. You can select the answer yes if you agree with the suggestion, or you may not even see these questions. The program does it automatically.
When you have set the unit changes, your drawing measure units will be changed. To check if everything is fine, you can measure the distance from one point to another and the result will be shown in the unit you have set, and not in the imperial one that was used at the beginning.
Using the block import option to change the unites
Here is another method to change the units in AutoCAD, about this unit, it can cause you to lose data from drawing, especially the data about named objects in the section of lines, line types or block, this is a naturally destructive way to change units, but if you use it properly and get to know all this information about it, you will be fine.
To begin you should start a new AutoCAD session. Go the main application menu, and select the New Drawing option there. You will have a window opened, where you should head to the Paradiso.dwt and then click on the open button.
Next, write the UN into the command line, and hit the enter key from a keyboard. You are going to notice the Units window. In there, you will have the list with units shown in front of you, and you are supposed choose the unit that fits your needs. In the following, write the I command into the command line and confirm it by pressing the Enter key on your keyboard. Now, you will have to search for the imperial unit of your drawing in the Insert menu which will be shown as a new window.
In the Insert window, find and turn off the Specify On-screen option, that will appear under the sections Insert point, Scale, and Rotation. In the lower-left corner of this window, there is an Explode option that you are supposed to turn off or uncheck as well.
If you have done all we mentioned properly, you can hit the OK button to confirm the settings. This will result in your drawing to have changed units, and it will be inserted into a new sheet. If you check the distance from one point to another, you will notice that the units have been changed from the initial ones to the one you have set using this option.
