• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

bVisual

  • Home
  • Services
    • How Visio smartness can help your business
    • Visio visual in Power BI
    • Visio Consulting Services
    • Visio Bureau Services
    • Visio Training and Support Services
  • Products
    • Visio Shape Report Converter
    • SS Plus
    • LayerManager
    • visViewer
    • Metro Icons
    • Rules Tools for Visio
    • The Visio 2010 Sessions App
    • Multi-Language Text for Visio
    • Document Imager for Visio
    • multiSelect for Visio
    • pdSelect for Visio
  • Case Studies
    • Case studies overview
    • Visualizing Construction Project Schedules
    • Visio Online Business Process Mapping
    • Nexans Visio Template
    • CNEE Projects, WorldCom
    • Chase Manhattan Bank
  • News
    • Recent news
    • News archive
  • Resources
    • Articles➡
      • ShapeSheet Functions A-Z
      • Comparing Visio for the Web and Desktop
      • Customising Visio Shapes for the Web App
      • Key differences between the Visio desktop and web apps
      • Using the Visio Data Visualizer in Excel
      • Using Visio in Teams
      • Creating Visio Tabs and Apps for Teams with SharePoint Framework (SPFx)
      • Designing Power Automate Flows with Microsoft Visio
      • Innovative uses of Visio Lists
    • Webcasts ➡
      • Visio in Organizations
      • My session and other Visio sessions at MSIgnite 2019
      • Power up your Visio diagrams
      • Vision up your Visio diagrams
      • The Visio 2010 MVP Sessions
    • Visio Web Learning Resources
    • Books➡
      • Mastering Data Visualization with Microsoft Visio
      • Microsoft Visio Business Process Diagramming and Validation
      • Visualizing Information with Microsoft Visio
  • Blog
    • Browse blog articles
    • Visio Power BI articles
    • Visio for Web articles
    • A history of messaging and encryption
  • About us
    • About bVisual
    • Testimonials
    • Bio of David Parker
    • Contact Us
    • Website Privacy Policy
    • Website terms and conditions
    • Ariba Network
You are here: Home / Visio / Metric vs US Units in Visio floor plans

Published on June 20, 2017 by David Parker

Metric vs US Units in Visio floor plans

First of all, as a Brit, I have to point out that US Units in Visio should really be called Imperial Units 🙂 I was born pre-decimalisation (note the s not a z!) and have had a mixed vocabulary ever since. I think about distances in feet, yards and miles not in millimetres, metres and kilometres. I weigh myself in stones and pounds, not kilograms.
As a trained (but lapsed) building architect, I can convert between metric and imperial lengths and areas fairly well, and have got used to changing glibly between both systems. I used to draw on Imperial size paper (wonderfully called Double Elephant), and spend many hours folding freshly printed, but dangerously smelling, dyelines. Imperial/US Units paper sizes are not all the same ratio between the side lengths like Metric paper sizes are. So, this creates a problem with Visio…


All of the setup of printer and page size, orientation and scale are selected in the Page Setup dialog, but all of the Visio templates come with some optons already set.

Paper Sizes

Pages in Visio are not necessarily the same size or orientation as the paper that it is printed to, or exported as a pdf, but it is often expected that the page should print nicely to whatever size paper is being used. Therefore, I often set the Visio page to fit to 1 sheet across by 1 sheet down in Page Setup / Print Setup. In the following table of the pre-defined paper sizes presented in Visio, I have named the ANSI Architectural paper sizes as per there proper names ( US Paper Sizes), but the Visio interface does not name them.

Paper TypePaper NameMetricUS UnitsSides Ratio
MetricA5210 mm x 148 mm8.26 in x 5.82 in1.419
MetricA4297 mm x 210 mm11.69 in x 8.26 in1.414
MetricA3420 mm x 297 mm16.53 in x 11.69 in1.414
MetricA2594 mm x 420 mm23.38 in x 16.53 in1.414
MetricA1841 mm x 594 mm33.1 in x 23.38 in1.416
MetricA01189 mm x 841 mm46.79 in x 33.1 in1.414
StandardLetter279.51 mm x 215.99 mm11 in x 8.5 in1.294
StandardFolio330.33 mm x 215.99 mm13 in x 8.5 in1.529
StandardLegal355.74 mm x 215.99 mm14 in x 8.5 in1.647
StandardLedger431.97 mm x 279.51 mm17 in x 11 in1.545
ANSI EngineeringA279.51 mm x 215.99 mm11 in x 8.5 in1.294
ANSI EngineeringB431.97 mm x 279.51 mm17 in x 11 in1.545
ANSI EngineeringC559.02 mm x 431.97 mm22 in x 17 in1.294
ANSI EngineeringD863.94 mm x 559.02 mm34 in x 22 in1.545
ANSI EngineeringE1118.04 mm x 863.94 mm44 in x 34 in1.294
ANSI ArchitecturalArch A304.92 mm x 228.69 mm12 in x 9 in1.333
ANSI ArchitecturalArch B457.38 mm x 304.92 mm18 in x 12 in1.5
ANSI ArchitecturalArch C609.84 mm x 457.38 mm24 in x 18 in1.333
ANSI ArchitecturalArch D914.76 mm x 609.84 mm36 in x 24 in1.5
ANSI ArchitecturalArch E11067.22 mm x 762.3 mm42 in x 30 in1.4

An analysis of the sizes reveals that these are the nearest equivalent page sizes in the three systems of interest.

MetricANSI EngineeringANSI Architectural
A4AArch A
A3BArch B
A2CArch C
A1DArch D
A0EArch E1

Metric page sizes have no problem being reduced to print on A4 or A3 paper because they have the same ratio of sides ( A Paper Sizes ). However, US Units pages have a problem because of the different side ratios. Fortunately, the ANSI Engineering paper sizes are based on the Letter and Folio paper sizes, so they could be reduced to fit, if the correct paper tray is selected. The ANSI Architectural sizes do not reduce well to fit normally available printer paper sizes, but this is not an issue if the output is digital.
 

Drawing Scales

Of course, the only time that the scale on the Visio page matches the print is when the page and paper are exactly the same.
Visio provides four pre-defined alternative systems Metric, Architectural, Civil Engineering and Mechanical Engineering using the Page Setup / Drawing Scale dialog. The following table lists all of those that are pre-defined, although it is possible to enter any custom scale.

Scale SystemScale NameScaler
Metric1 : 10001000
Metric1 : 500500
Metric1 : 200200
Metric1 : 100100
Metric1 : 5050
Metric1 : 2525
Metric1 : 2020
Metric1 : 1010
Metric1 : 55
Metric1 : 2.52.5
Metric1 : 22
Metric1 : 11
Metric10 : 10.1
Metric20 : 10.05
Metric50 : 10.02
Architectural3/32″ = 1′128
Architectural1/8″ = 1′96
Architectural3/16″ = 1′64
Architectural1/4″ = 1′48
Architectural3/8″ = 1′32
Architectural1/2″ = 1′24
Architectural3/4″ = 1′16
Architectural1″ = 1′12
Architectural1 ½” = 1′8
Architectural3″ = 1′4
Architectural1′ = 1′1
Civil Engineering1″ = 1″1
Civil Engineering1″ = 10′ 0″120
Civil Engineering1″ = 20′ 0″240
Civil Engineering1″ = 30′ 0″360
Civil Engineering1″ = 40′ 0″480
Civil Engineering1″ = 50′ 0″600
Civil Engineering1″ = 60′ 0″720
Civil Engineering1″ = 70′ 0″840
Civil Engineering1″ = 80′ 0″960
Civil Engineering1″ = 90′ 0″1080
Civil Engineering1″ = 100′ 0″1200
Mechanical Engineering1/32 : 132
Mechanical Engineering1/16 : 116
Mechanical Engineering1/8 : 18
Mechanical Engineering1/4 : 14
Mechanical Engineering1/2 : 12
Mechanical Engineering1 : 11
Mechanical Engineering2 : 10.5
Mechanical Engineering4 : 10.25
Mechanical Engineering6 : 10.166666667
Mechanical Engineering8 : 10.125
Mechanical Engineering10 : 10.1

I only use Metric or Architectural for floor plans in Visio, and the nearest equivalent pre-defined scales are listed below.

MetricArchitectural
1 : 1001/8″ = 1′
1 : 501/4″ = 1′
1 : 251/2″ = 1′
1 : 203/4″ = 1′
1 : 101″ = 1′

Measurement Units

The internal units of Visio are inches to four decimal places, but each page can have these converted to a selected measurement unit. Changing the Drawing Scale type also changes the Measurement Unit, as per the following table.

Drawing Scale TypeMeasurement Units
ArchitecturalFeet and Inches
Civil EngineeringInches (decimal)
Mechanical EngineeringInches
MetricMeters

There are other linear measurement unit options though, as listed in the following table.

Measurement SystemMeasurement UnitExample
US UnitsInches1 in
US UnitsFeet and inches0 ft 1 in
US UnitsYards1 yd
US UnitsMiles1 mi
US UnitsInches (decimal)1.0 in
US UnitsMiles (decimal)1.0 mi
MetricMillimeters1 mm
MetricCentimeters1 cm
MetricMeters1 m
MetricKilometers1 km

The Measurement Unit specifies the unit applied to the value in the DrawingScale cell of the PageSheet.
Some of the Visio Metric templates for floor plans set the Measurement Unit to Millimeters, but I prefer to use Meters because this unit is more suitable for large areas.

Layout and Routing

Changing the Measurement Units, Page Size and Scale, using the Page Setup dialog, also updates values of the Average Shape Size, Space Between Shapes, Connector to Shape and Connector to Connector.

Conclusion

Visio templates do not normally expect users to swap between Metric and US Units. Indeed, there are different sets of templates and stencils for each. The file names end in _M.vs?x and _U.vs?x to distinguish between the two, and the Visio UI reads this, and filters the visibility of stencils accordingly.
However, there are some users who may need to be able to change between the two, and the Page Setup dialog does not prevent this. The Page Setup dialog, though, updates many cells in the PageSheet simultaneously, so care needs to be taken when automating similar tasks or by using ShapeSheet formulas. This article highlights the issues involved.

Other useful links

See my previous article about Displaying Metric Units in US Units Floor Plans .

Related

Filed Under: Floor Plans, Scale, Visio, Visio 2016 Tagged With: Measuremnet Units, Paper Sizes, Scales

About David Parker

David Parker has 25 years' experience of providing data visualization solutions to companies around the globe. He is a Microsoft MVP and Visio expert.

Reader Interactions

Trackbacks

  1. Switching Metric and US Units in #Visio floor plans | bVisual - for people interested in Microsoft Visio says:
    June 26, 2017 at 4:23 pm

    […] recently wrote an article comparing Metric and US Units in Visio for floor plans (see Metric vs US Units in #Visio floor plans). The intention was always to create right mouse actions on a Visio floor plan border shape to […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Recent Posts

  • Update to LayerManager add-in for non-English users
  • Pushing Data Visualizer in Visio beyond its limits
  • Pushing Data Visualizer in Visio to the limits!
  • Teams Tuesday Podcast Recording about Visio
  • Linking Data to Visio Shapes in Code

Categories

Tags

Accessibility Add-Ins Connectors Containers Data Export Data Graphics Data Import Data Visualizer Educational Excel GraphDatabase Hyperlinks Icon Sets JavaScript Layers Legend Link Data to Shapes Lists MSIgnite MVP Office365 Org Chart PowerApps PowerBI PowerQuery Processes Shape Data Shape Design ShapeSheet ShapeSheet Functions SharePoint 2013 SQL Teams Themes Validation VBA Video Visio Visio 2007 Visio 2013 Visio for the Web Visio Online Visio Services Visio Viewer Webinar

Footer

bVisual Profile

The UK-based independent Visio consultancy with a worldwide reach. We have over 25 years experience of providing data visualization solutions to companies around the globe.

Learn more about bVisual

  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Search this website

Recent posts

  • Update to LayerManager add-in for non-English users
  • Pushing Data Visualizer in Visio beyond its limits
  • Pushing Data Visualizer in Visio to the limits!
  • Teams Tuesday Podcast Recording about Visio
  • Linking Data to Visio Shapes in Code

Copyright © 2023 · Executive Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in