Very Basic Scaling Question

[Ladd]

Hi,

I just installed "Designer," and am using a combination of architect and landmark to draw a simple foundation plan, along with patios, walks, trees, etc.

I've dragged and dropped several "small deciduous trees" (in 2D plan view) onto the illustration of a planting bed adjacent to a patio. The tree forms are way too large, but none of the scaling tools affect the forms at all. I've tried dragging the "handles" diagonally, and the cursor changes and appears to be reducing the bounding box around the tree form to a smaller size. However, when I release the mouse button, the tree remains its original size and hasn't been affected at all.

Similarly, when I used the "scale objects" command under the Modify menu (entering a value of .5 to halve the size of the tree) nothing happens, except for an ever so slight "nudge" of the selected object.

What am I doing wrong, please, and how can I successfully scale objects imported from the resource libraries?

Thanks...

[jan15]

Symbol insertions can't be re-sized. But if you convert one to a group (using the Symbol-to-Group command), then you can use drag-stretch, Scale Objects, etc. to change its size.

If you're going to have several trees all the same size, you can Convert to Group and re-size just once, then use the Ungroup command and the Create Symbol command to make a new symbol in the correct size. Then you can create more insertions of it with the Insert Symbol tool, or just drag-copy any insertion to other locations.

The advantage of a symbol is that the geometry in it is only stored in the file once, no matter how many times you insert it; and if you edit any insertion of a symbol (just double-click on it to start editing), the symbol definition and all the other insertions of it are automatically changed. Some of the built-in symbols can't be edited; that's why I suggested creating a new one rather than editing the built-in one that's too large for you.

[Ladd]

Thanks, Jan.

I really appreciate your help. Excellent, articulate, and easy to understand.