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Print a drawing to scale

Free. No account, no email, nothing uploaded.

Real figures, so you can see what it does before typing your own.
1 :
Read it off the title block. Common: 10, 20, 25, 50, 100, 200, 250.
Printed scale
1:141

A 1:50 drawing issued on A1 becomes 1:141 printed on A4.

Print at
35.4%
100 mm on the print is
14.14 m
1 m on site is
7.1 mm

Worked out on this device, by this page. Nothing you typed was sent anywhere or stored, and closing the tab loses it.

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Why a 1:50 drawing is not 1:50 when you print it

Drawings are issued at a sheet size. A structural GA might be 1:50 on A1, a setting-out plan 1:100 on A0. The scale written in the title block is only true on the sheet it was issued at. Reprint it on anything smaller and that number is wrong, but the title block still says the old one, because the title block is part of the drawing.

An A1 sheet is 594 by 841 millimetres. A4 is 210 by 297. Printing A1 onto A4 shrinks everything to 35.3 per cent, so a 1:50 drawing comes out at 1:141. Scale a dimension off that print with a 1:50 rule and you are out by a factor of 2.8. On a 3 metre opening that is an error of over five metres.

The A-series shortcut, and where it breaks

Each step down the A series halves the area and divides the linear dimensions by the square root of two, roughly 1.414. So one step down multiplies the scale denominator by 1.414, two steps by 2, and three steps by 2.83. A1 to A4 is three steps: 50 becomes 141.

That shortcut only works inside one paper family. ANSI and architectural sheets do not follow the same ratio, so an Arch D printed on Letter does not land on a tidy number. If you are working across families, take the percentage from the tool rather than doing it in your head.

Check the print before you scale off it

Printers lie. Fit to page, borderless, and driver-side margin handling all quietly change the output, and a print that says 35.3 per cent in the dialog is not always 35.3 per cent on the paper. Before you trust any measurement:

  • Measure the scale bar on the drawing if there is one. That is what it is for.
  • If there is no scale bar, measure a dimension you already know, a 600 grid or a known column centre, and compare it against the figure this tool gives you.
  • Turn off fit to page and enter the percentage manually. Fit to page adds its own margin correction and quietly changes the scale by a percent or two.

Scaling off drawings at all

Most drawings carry a note saying do not scale, and it is there for a reason: dimensions are the record, the linework is a representation of it. Scaling is for a rough check, a sanity test, or working out whether something fits before you ring someone. If a dimension matters, it should be dimensioned, and if it is not on the drawing, ask for it rather than measuring it.

That said, everyone scales off drawings. The point of this tool is that if you are going to, you should at least know what scale you are actually looking at.

Everything stays on your device

This is arithmetic. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored, and there is no account. Close the tab and there is no trace of what you were working on, which matters more than it sounds when the drawing number tells someone which job you are pricing.

Common questions

Why is a 1:50 drawing not actually 1:50 once I have reprinted it?

Because the scale in the title block is only true at the sheet size the drawing was issued at. Reprint it smaller and the geometry shrinks with the paper while the title block still states the original scale, because the title block is part of the drawing rather than a separate calculation.

What scale does a 1:50 drawing on A1 become when printed on A4?

1:141. An A1 sheet is 594 by 841 millimetres and A4 is 210 by 297, so printing A1 onto A4 shrinks everything to 35.3 per cent, and scaling a dimension off that print with a 1:50 rule puts you out by a factor of 2.8.

Is there a shortcut for working out the new scale between paper sizes?

Within the A series, yes. Each step down the series divides the linear dimensions by roughly 1.414, so one step multiplies the scale denominator by 1.414, two steps by 2, and three steps, such as A1 to A4, by 2.83. That shortcut breaks down between paper families, since ANSI and architectural sheets do not follow the same ratio.

How do I check that a print is really at the scale it claims to be?

Measure the scale bar on the drawing if it has one, or measure a dimension you already know, such as a 600 grid or a known column centre, and compare it against the figure this tool gives you. It is also worth turning off "fit to page" and entering the percentage manually, since fit to page adds its own margin correction and can quietly change the scale by a percent or two.

Am I actually allowed to scale dimensions off a drawing?

Most drawings carry a note saying do not scale, because dimensions are the record and the linework is only a representation of it. Scaling is fine for a rough check or working out whether something fits before you ring someone, but if a dimension genuinely matters it should be dimensioned, or you should ask for it.