there are two drawing spaces in every AutoCAD file
they are model space and paper space paper space was introduced in AutoCAD release 11 AutoCAD 2013 is the 27th release of AutoCAD so as you can see paper space has been around for a long time I’m not sure exactly which version or which release of AutoCAD LT 2013 is but it’s been around for a while too and even though paper space has been around since 1990 which was when our 11 was released it still causes trouble for many users today understanding the purposes of each drawing space is a fundamental need when creating drawings in AutoCAD right now I want to keep it simple and I just want to introduce you to these two working environments just remember keep it in mind that model space is where you’re drawing objects go in paper space is where your paper objects go there are exceptions to these rules of course from time to time but generally speaking that’s the rule of thumb if you were to create a drawing with pencil and paper you would start with a drawing border and a title block and then put your drawing in sight it AutoCAD does the exact same thing but in Reverse you create your drawing objects or your model in model space they can be 2d or 3d objects if you’re working with AutoCAD and then you switch to paper space and add your drawing border and your title block then you add your notes your dimensions your text your details your call-outs etc paper space is for your annotation especially so if you’re going to create more than one sheet in a file there can only be one model space tab in any given file but you can have almost as many paper space tabs in your file as you need however it’s a good idea to limit them there are a lot of reasons for that if you have to scroll through paper space tabs to see them all then you probably have too many by default the template files typically come in with a model space and a layout 1 and layout 2 tab
when you approach drawing an AutoCAD think of your line work as data in the database and that data belongs in model space where you can access it where it’s raw paper space is where you will display this data in your drawing you reference the data through what’s called a viewport
box here this is a viewport the portal to model space that gives you a view for your drawing
I double-click
side the viewport to activate it and there I have complete control of how it will be displayed visually however its displayed in model space is one thing but here in my paper space layout tab I can display it however I need to and in my second or in another viewport I can display it in an even different way therefore I can take the basic data of one model and make a multitude of different drawings with it so remember this is a viewport references the data from model space so think of it as a window to model space once I’m here I can annotate this all I want I can add dimensions to it
and then I can go into my other drawing and dimension it in a different way same model same line work but two different drawings this allows you to create multiple drawings from one basic set of line work or data one of the biggest benefits to annotating and paper space is that you can create multiple viewports in one file in model space you get one shot at making your drawing you can annotate all you want in model space and that’s perfectly fine but everything you do in model space will go to your viewport and you’ll have to deal with that there are certain things you can do you can use different layers you can use annotated text these things will help you out a lot and there are times when it is appropriate to put text and notations in model space there are also times where it’s an appropriate or acceptable to put line work in paper space we’ll talk about those more in depth later because I want to make sure you really understand these differences because they will help you to create wonderful drawings and wonderful files that many people can go and use and understand how they’re working with a very little effort or you can do things in a bad way and make things difficult on yourself and for other people but for now just keep it very simple model spaces for your line work paper spaces for your paper work
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