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Drawings settings

How the drawing register reads and files sheets.

Drawings settings

What it is

Drawings settings is how your organisation's sheets look as documents: the paper size and orientation, the practice name and the line under it in the title block, the issue wording, the drawing-number template, the standing notes and the furniture around the border. It applies to every sheet Base issues for you, shop drawings and plan sets alike. Line weights, lettering and hatching are drafting convention and stay fixed, so a sheet always reads as a drawing whatever you set.

You edit against a live sheet. The preview on the right is drawn by the same generator that produces the real PDFs, redrawn on every keystroke, so what you approve is what gets issued.

Before you start

  • Saving needs an admin. Anyone can open the page and try settings to see what they do; only an admin's Save sticks.
  • The practice name defaults to your business name from the Business profile.

How to

Set the paper and the title block

  1. Under Paper, choose the size (A4, A3, A2 or A1) and Landscape or Portrait.
  2. Under Your practice, type the name that heads the title block and the line under it (licence number, phone, website). Leave the name blank to use your business name.
  3. Under Issue wording, set what a joinery sheet says ("For approval") and what a plan sheet says ("For info").
  4. Watch the preview update. Switch it between a joinery sheet and a plan sheet to check both.
  5. Press Save (or Ctrl/Cmd+S). The line reads "Saved — every sheet issued from here on uses it."

Change the drawing-number template

  1. Under Drawing numbers, edit the template. {tag} is the unit tag, {nn} the sheet number and {job} the project number; the default is JU-{tag}-{nn}.
  2. Read the sheet title in the preview to see what it produces, then press Save.

Write the standing notes

  1. Under Standing notes, type one note per line, up to eight. Leave the box empty to keep the built-in three.
  2. Check they fit the strip in the preview, then press Save.

Choose the sheet furniture

  1. Tick or untick Printed sign-off box (a drawing issued through the portal may not need one), Border zone references (the A/B/C · 1/2/3 grid down the border) and Print mono (no red, for practices that issue in black and white).
  2. Press Save.

Go back to the defaults

  1. Press Reset to defaults, check the preview, then press Save if you want to keep that.

What happens on its own

  • Every sheet generated from the moment you save uses the new style: the unit sheets on Manufacturing, the drawing register's PDFs, and plan sets.
  • Drawing sets stored in the register before the change keep the style they were saved with. They are a record of what was issued.

Things that surprise people

  • The preview is the real generator, not a mock-up. If your notes overflow the strip or your number template produces "2148/", you see it here before a joiner does.
  • Reset to defaults only changes the form. Nothing happens to the organisation until you press Save.
  • A non-admin can change every control and watch the preview, and the Save button stays disabled with "Admins only" on hover.
  • Changing the drawing-number template renumbers nothing already issued. Sets in the register keep their numbers.