Set the drawing limits

Drawing limits are a rectangle that says how big the drawing is meant to be: the area you plan to draw in, such as a sheet 420 × 297. A new drawing has none, so the grid and the drawing area are unbounded, as before.

Set them

Type LIMITS and answer:

• Specify lower left corner or [ON/OFF] <0,0>: a point, or ReturnEnter to keep the current one.
• Specify upper right corner <420,297>: a point, or ReturnEnter to keep the current one. It must be above and to the right of the first.

Or type ON or OFF at the first question to switch the check without changing the rectangle. Setting the corners is one undo step, and so is each ON and OFF.

What they do

• The grid fills the limits and stops at their edge. It is a picture of the area, so turn Grid on to see it.
• ZOOM All (ZOOM, then All) shows the limits and the drawing together; Extents still shows only the drawing.
• With the limits ON, a point you type or click outside them is refused with **Outside limits and the prompt stays. It covers the commands that make objects: LINE, PLINE, CIRCLE, ARC, RECTANG, POLYGON, ELLIPSE, SPLINE, POINT, TEXT, MTEXT, INSERT, the dimension commands and a few more. Commands that only move, select or measure are not limited, and neither is pasting, a grip drag, or an object a LISP routine makes: the limits are a guide for drawing, not a wall. With the limits OFF nothing is refused.
• Objects that are already outside stay where they are.

In files and LISP

They are saved in DWG and DXF as $LIMMIN, $LIMMAX and $LIMCHECK. A file from another program that has only that program's default limits (0,0 to 12,9 or 420,297, check off) opens with none, so its grid is not squeezed into a small rectangle; a file with limits of its own, or with the check on, keeps them. In LISP, (getvar "LIMMIN"), LIMMAX and LIMCHECK read them and setvar writes them, as one undo step.

The limits belong to the model. A sheet (a layout) has its own paper size.