Creating a custom unit

You can create your own units and use them to create your drawings. After you have created a new unit, you can enter values almost anywhere in the program using the new units. For example, if you define decimeters (dm) as 10 centimeters, you can enter values like "0.2dm" in virtually any field in the program.

To create a custom unit

1. From the Utilities menu, choose Options.

2. Click the Units tab.

3. Click the New Unit button to open the Unit Properties dialog box.

4. Enter the name and abbreviation for the new unit. The abbreviation should be different from those already in use.

5. Select whether the abbreviation should be prefixed or suffixed. e.g. "dm10" or "10dm".

6. Enter values at the bottom of the dialog box to set the ratio of the unit to one of the existing units.

Tips

If you want the Selector Tool Infobar and the Status Line to show dimension in your new units, change the Page Units. See Changing the page units.

You can create units that are not linear measurements. For example, you can create a measurement called US$ for preparing financial diagrams.

Units such as Miles or Kilometers are too large to be used directly but you can scale them down. For information see Setting a scale factor. This is also useful for creating scale drawings (for example, 1:100).

For details on changing the units used by the rulers, see the Grid and Ruler Options.

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