How to Change Units and Decimals in Tekla

Before you start to create a model in Tekla structure program, you need to determine for the program how to measure the model axes and elements and with which unit shows the dimensions of your drawings and define the units in your reports and profile catalogue.

This subject will be important for all those who are going to receive reports and drawings of your model, and these units should be determined according to their needs, and it is also important for you as a person who is going to create a model of this structure to properly match the dimensions of the architectural and structural plots with your model.

For this reason, here we will refer to how to define units for your model and drawings and reports and profile in the catalogue list of your model.

How to Change Units and Decimals of Your Model in Tekla Structure

Before you start modelling your structure, you should specify for the program that the distance between the axes of the structure and the length of the elements, etc. should be shown with which units.

This will be very important for you to be able to build your model properly.

It is suggested that your units be the same as the units which you have in structural and architectural plans. The program allows you to easily change the program units if you encounter plots with different kind of units during the modelling structure, you can change the units of the program and complete that part of your model and again change the units of the program to your desired unit and continue your work.

It should be noted that to change the units in the program, there is no need to restart the program and after applying the command, all your changes will be applied.

Here we are going to explain how to apply these settings.

In this example, we want to change units in our model from feet to meter

1- Click on File.

2- Click on Settings.

3- Click on Option.

4- Click on the Modeling tab.

5- Choose your desired units for your model

6- Click on Apply.

7- Click on Ok.

Here you can see the units in the model were converted from feet to meters.

Note;

If you change the units in the model, units in the reports and drawings will not change.

How to Change Catalogue Units in Tekla Structure.

When you want to create your models in Tekla you should define the size of the profile for your model. Due to the fact that in different countries we have different coordinate systems, so sometimes you need to see the sizes of profiles with different units. For this purpose, you must follow the steps below.

In the below picture, you can see the size of the profile in inch unit we want to change it to the millimetre unit.

1- Click on File.

2- Click on Settings.

3- Click on Option.

4- Click on the Catalogue tab.

5- Choose your desired units for your Catalogue.

6- Click on Apply.

7- Click on Ok.

Now if you go to the catalogue part, you can see all unis were converted to millimetres.

Note;

You should pay attention to this point that, If you change the units in the catalogue, units in the reports and drawings will not change.

How to Change Units in Drawings;

In the drawing part, there are different values which you can change their units.

Here we are going to explain how to change the unit of dimensions and also the unit of values in the tables of your drawing.

How to Change Unit of Dimension in Tekla’s Drawings

For changing the unit of dimensions in the drawing sheet you can follow these steps;

As you see in the picture the unit of dimensions in the drawing is millimetre and we want to change it to Centimeter.

1- Double-click on the dimension command.

2- In the General tab, you can change the units and the accuracy of them in your drawing sheet.

Choose your desired unit and accuracy.

3- Click on Apply.

4- Click on Ok.

Now you can see after you draw the dimension for your drawing, the unit of them will be shown by centimetre.

How to Change Units of Value in the Drawing’s Table in Tekla

In the table which you have in your drawing sheet, you have different values with different units.

Here we want to explain how to change the units in the table.

As you see we have length values in our table with inch unit and we want to change units to the centimetre.

For that we should follow these steps;

1- Right-click on the table.

2- Click on “Edit template in Template Editor”.

3- Click on “LEN” value.

4- In the Left window, Right-click on the “Length”.

5- Click on the Properties.

6- In the “Value Field Properties” dialogue, change unit and choose your desired accuracy for it in Decimals part.

Here we choose “cm” unit.

7- Click on Apply.

8- Click on Ok.

9- Click on File.

10- Click on Save.

11- Click on Yes to approve these changes in the template.

Note;

When you change something in the template in all drawings which you use this template on them these values will be changed too.

As you see the value of the table in your drawing did not change yet. for that, you should open your drawing again.

12- Click on the Drawing tab and Click on the Previous or Next to open another drawing.

Now, you can see the unit of values has changed to “cm” in your table.