Annotative Entities in BricsCAD Explained
Last updated: July 20, 2026. Verified against Octave’s official V26 documentation.
Quick answer: Annotations, dimensions, text, symbols, and similar non-geometric entities, are often scale-dependent, needing to match the plot scale or appear only at certain scales. Annotative entities and styles solve this by adjusting their display size, location, and orientation automatically based on the current scale factor and viewport.
What Can Be Annotative
Entities: text and multiline text, hatches, blocks and attributes, dimensions and tolerances, and leaders and multileaders.
Styles: text styles (STYLE), dimension styles (DIMSTYLE), and multileader styles (MLEADERSTYLE).
Automatic vs Manual Annotative Assignment
Worth knowing clearly: an entity created using an annotative style automatically gets the current annotation scale assigned. But applying an annotative style to an entity that already exists and wasn’t annotative doesn’t automatically make that entity annotative, you’d need to set that property yourself.
The Annotative Entity Commands
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
ANNORESET |
Resets every scale representation of the selected entities to the location of their current one, synchronizing them |
ANNOUPDATE |
Updates selected annotative entities to match their current style definition |
OBJECTSCALE / -OBJECTSCALE |
Adds or removes supported scales for annotative entities, via dialog or Command line |
SCALELISTEDIT / -SCALELISTEDIT |
Edits a drawing’s scale list, the source of available annotation scales, also used in the Plot Scale section of print dialogs and a paper space viewport’s Standard scale property |
The Annotative System Variables
| Variable | Controls |
|---|---|
ANNOALLVISIBLE |
Toggles display of annotative entities that don’t support the current annotation scale |
ANNOTATIVEDWG |
Whether the entire drawing behaves as an annotative block when inserted into another drawing |
CANNOSCALE |
The name of the current annotation scale for the current space; only scales already in the scale list are accepted, and the setting saves separately with model space and each layout viewport. New annotative entities get this scale applied automatically |
CANNOSCALEVALUE |
The numeric value of the current annotation scale, for example, 0.5 for a 1:2 scale |
HPANNOTATIVE |
Whether new hatch entities are annotative, the same setting behind the Annotative checkbox in the Hatch and Gradient dialog |
MSLTSCALE |
With it on, linetypes in model space scale to the current annotation scale; a regen is needed after toggling. This is the model space equivalent of PSLTSCALE in paper space |
MSOLESCALE |
The size of a pasted OLE object containing text in model space; affects initial scaling only, existing objects aren’t changed if you modify it later |
SAVEFIDELITY |
Whether the drawing’s current display is preserved when opened in a program without annotative entity support |
SELECTIONANNODISPLAY |
Whether all scale representations display when an annotative entity is selected |
Setting the Current Annotation Scale
Either click the Annotation Scale field under Misc in the Properties panel and choose a scale from the dropdown, or right-click the Annotation Scale field in the Status Bar and select one there (if that field isn’t visible, click the down arrow at the right of the Status Bar and add Annotation Scale to it first).
Only scales already in the drawing’s scale list are available; use SCALELISTEDIT to edit that list.
Making an Entity Annotative
- Select the entity.
- In the Properties panel, click the Annotative property.
- Select Yes; the current annotation scale applies to it.
Frequently Asked Questions
If I apply an annotative text style to existing text, does that text become annotative automatically? No, applying an annotative style to an already-existing, non-annotative entity doesn’t automatically make it annotative, you’d need to set that property on the entity yourself.
Can an entire drawing behave as an annotative entity? Yes, when inserted into another drawing as a block, controlled by ANNOTATIVEDWG.
What’s the relationship between MSLTSCALE and PSLTSCALE? They’re equivalents in different spaces: MSLTSCALE scales model space linetypes to the current annotation scale, while PSLTSCALE does the same job in paper space.
How do I add a new scale to the list of available annotation scales? Run SCALELISTEDIT to edit the drawing’s scale list directly.