Imported pdf and scaling issue

[Vince Oles]

I imported a site survey drawing into an existing project file. In doing so, I scaled the pdf only to realize... too late, that it affected all my design layers and sheets! 

I then went to a back up file and corrupted this one as well.

I have looked in Time machine for a back up file to no success. Apparently, my VW files are not being saved there.

 

Any help in trying to save me from having to start from scratch will be greatly appreciated!

[bcd]

I'm sure you've run undo already.

 

Usually when you scale it will scale only the selected object.

In your case the PDF probably wasn't selected and you pressed OK to scale the entire drawing.

 

If you do the same operation you will see the last used scale factor in the dialogue box. Invert this ( 1/x) and again scale the entire drawing and you should be good to go.

[Tom W.]

Always make sure you ALWAYS have 'Entire Drawing' unchecked:

 

Has anyone anywhere ever wanted to scale their entire drawing? Probably I guess but I never have.

 

 

[Vince Oles]

Thank you! Will give this a go and see if I can get back to normal!

[Pat Stanford]

And let's talk about backups.

 

My opinions here. But they are undoubtedly correct and should be heeded without question. 😉

 

Basic Considerations:

1. Disk space is cheap

2. Your time is expensive

3. Screen shot is from VW2024, but earlier version are similar.

 

 

1.  Autosave should be set to some number of operations instead of time. That way you know the autosave will not start in the middle of some task you are trying to accomplish.

2. You want this to be seamless, so uncheck the Confirm Before Save.

3. Don't overwrite the original.  That is what the Save command is for. Save a backup copy so you actually have a backup to go to if you need to.

4. Backup all your files to a single custom location.  While this means that you will have to do slightly more work to find a file when you need to recover a backup, it makes it much easier to "prune" your backups when you are done with projects as they are all in one location. 

5. Save a high number of backups.  My value of 24 gives me about 4 hours if I am actively working on a project.

 

 

And when I am active on a project I will usually make an "archive" copy of the entire project every morning and rename it with the date. If the project runs for a long time, I will usually go through and prune the archives to only keep weekly copies after a month or so.

 

So that gets you local copies/backup.  Now make sure that backup folder is also saved to some cloud/backup service.  This could be ARQ, or Carbonite, or Even Dropbox Pro with the 1-year file history option. Time machine as an additional step is also good.

 

Remember, nothing is backed up until you have at least 3 copies on at least two different types of media in two different geographical locations and have tested the ability to recover the data.

 

HTH.

[bcd]

Something very similar here - except

# of backups 3 - I find I only every go back to a backup rarely and then immediately following an issue.

# operations 30

 

It's important to highlight that's it's good to set the location is set to a custom location like you are showing @Pat Stanford.

This way a single folder in the sidebar etc. will quickly take you there where you can compare most recent backups with most recently saved file. This also makes cleanup much simpler - as well as adding one layer of separation between your working files & the backups in case of disaster 😿

 

[Jeff Prince]

12 minutes ago, bcd said:

This way a single folder in the sidebar etc. will quickly take you there where you can compare most recent backups with most recently saved file. This also makes cleanup much simpler

 

Yes to this.  I have folders on my desktop for storing backups for a variety of programs and a place to deposit screen shots.

Fridays, I take a quick look at those folders and delete the unneeded before the big weekend backup.

[Vince Oles]

Thanks all for the advice. I transitioned software and hardware at the beginning of the year and did not set back-up files properly (Rookie error). These were invaluable tips for me and hopefully others.

As an added note....when I imported the pdf survey and scaled it, it affected my other design layers as well as all sheet sizes. It was a mess!  I had fortunately sent out dwg files for most of the drawings earlier to consultants and was able to resurrect the project fairly quickly.

Finally, the floor plan design layer showed a portion of the plan at the correct scale and the other at a larger scale....that's when I knew i was in serious trouble!