Subject: Understanding paper space and model space

When you start a drawing session, your initial working area is called model space. Model space is an area in which you create two-dimensional and three-dimensional entities based on either the World Coordinate System (WCS) or a user coordinate system (UCS). You view and work in model space while using the Model tab.

Your view of this area is a single viewport that fills the screen. You can create addi­tional views on the Model tab, called viewports, which can show the same or differ­ent two-dimensional or three-dimensional views, all of which are displayed in a tiled manner. You can work in only one of these viewports at a time on the Model tab, and you can print only the current viewport.                     

CADdirect provides an additional work area, called paper space. The contents of paper space represent the paper layout of your drawing. In this work area, you can create and arrange different views of your model similar to the way you arrange detail drawings or orthogonal views of a model on a sheet of paper. You can also add dimensions, keynotes, annotations, borders, title blocks, and other print-related entities in paper space, which reduces clutter when you work with your model in model space.              

You view and work in paper space while using a Layout tab. Each view, or layout viewport, that you create in paper space provides a window of your drawing in model space. You can create one layout viewport or several. You can place layout viewports anywhere on the screen; their edges can be touching or not; and you can print them all at the same time.

You do not need to use paper space to print your drawing, but it offers several advan­tages:

•   Print the same drawing with different print settings that you save with each layout, for example, printer configuration files, print style tables, lineweight settings, drawing scale, and more.

•   Add print-related entities that are not essential to the model itself, such as key­notes or annotations, to reduce clutter when you work with your model in model space on the Model tab.

•   For a single layout, create multiple layout viewports that print the model at differ­ent views and scales.

You can copy and move entities between model space and paper space.
Choose Modify > Change Space, then select the entities you want to copy or move from paper space to model space or from model space to paper space.