Microsoft Visio can handle many different units of measurements which can be set for a page and separately for shapes, such as dimensions, within the page. This can confuse some users who expect them both to be the same all the time. In fact, the dimension units can be set to be the same as the page units, but not necessarily so. It is possible to have different units on different dimension shapes, but is also possible to set all the same with one click, and to synchronise them with the page units.
Visio stores the page units in a cell in the PageSheet, called DrawingScale, by appending the unit to the value. The scale divisor is set in the PageScale cell, again with a unit suffix, so a PageScale = 0.25 in, and a DrawingScale = 1 ft, means that the scale is 1 ft / 0.25 in = 1 : 48 in Metric or 1/4 ” 1′ 0″ in US Units (it still hurts me to write US Units rather than Imperial!).
The units for the dimension shapes is stored as a number in User.LUnits cell in the PageSheet, and the precision is stored in the User.LPrec cell.
The easiest way to keep the dimension units synchronised is to have them set to the page default that you have set from one dimension line that is formatted as desired. However, if you have some dimension lines that have been set individually to another unit, then it will be necessary to select them and then click Revert to Page Default.
My good friend John Marshall, the original Visio MVP, has a nice article about the dimension shape : https://johnvisiomvp.ca/2021/10/08/does-visio-have-enough-precision/.
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