Custom scales cause performance issues with Open, Xref, Copy/Paste and Insert functions

You noticed significant performance issues when you performed the following actions in AutoCAD®:

• Opening drawings that contain Xrefs
• Inserting Xref drawings
• Copying/Pasting from one drawing into another
• Inserting blocks from external files

This behavior occurs if your drawings contain multiple custom annotation scales. To correct this issue, the scale list needs to be reset using the Scale List Cleanup utility. This utility allows you to specify a scale list template containing a user-defined scale list. When you run the utility, unused scales are deleted from files and the scale list from the selected template is applied.  This utility can be downloaded from the following locations:

Scale List Cleanup Utility for AutoCAD 2010

Scale List Cleanup Utility for AutoCAD 2009/2008

For individual drawings, the scale list can be manually reset. Follow these steps:

1. On the command line, enter -SCALELISTEDIT.
2. Enter option Reset.
3. When the "Reset scale list to defaults?" prompt is displayed, enter Yes.
4. Enter Exit or press ESC.

Resetting the scale list manually will cause all of your custom annotation scales to be lost and the list will be reset to the default list.

Note: Nested external references (xrefs) may produce excess scales. To correct this issue, install AutoCAD 2008 Service Pack 1 or corresponding service packs for AutoCAD-based products. The Scale List Cleanup Utility repairs files affected before the necessary service pack was installed.

See also

Custom scales not available in other drawings