Engineering Scale

The engineering scale is a measure of distance at a fixed ratio of length, and is typically represented as one inches equal a specific distance in feet.  An example engineering scale is 1 inch  = 100 feet (one inch measured on the map equals 100 feet of distance on the map).  This example can also be displayed with common notation for inches and feet as 1" = 100'. The engineering scale has a linear relationship to the mapping window's map scale.

The map scale is a measure of distance at a proportional ratio of length, and is typically represented as one unit of measure equals a specific distance of the same unit of measure.  An example map scale is 1:1200 (one inch measured on the map equals 1200 inches of distance on the map).

You can change the engineering scale using the engineering scale's edit icon:

When a user clicks the edit icon the following dialogue box will appear:

The current engineering scale is listed above, and the user can enter a new scale in the input box below it. 

After the user clicks the OK button a few things will happen. 

First, the mapping window zooms in or out to the scale you specified, retaining the current center of the map. Then the Engineering Scale display will show the user's new scale: 

And finally, the Map Scale in the mapping window will display the current map scale which is 12 times the number used in the engineering scale.

See also Zoom Map Scale.