You might need to change the Microsoft Office Visio measurement unit that is assigned to the CAD drawing unit. CAD drawings are created without pre-set drawing units; that is, a drawing unit can be interpreted as a millimeter, a meter, an inch, or a mile. When you insert a CAD drawing into a Visio drawing, CAD drawing units are interpreted in Visio measurement units. The units may not match, especially if you have inserted a metric CAD drawing into a Visio drawing that uses US drawing units.

To change the measurement unit assigned to a CAD drawing, right-click the drawing, point to CAD Drawing Object, and then click Properties. On the General tab, in the CAD drawing units list, click a different unit.

If the DWG or DXF drawing was saved in paper space (paper space: In a CAD drawing, a two-dimensional workspace analogous to a sheet of paper in which a drafter can arrange different views of a 3-D drawing.), and text in a viewport is cut off by the edge of the viewport, the CAD text is converted into lines instead of real text. Text is also converted into lines if the CAD drawing is not in plan view (a view of the drawing from above).

If you need to edit the text in Visio, either delete the lines and type in the text, or ask the owner of the CAD drawing to save it in model space (model space: In a CAD drawing, the primary drawing workspace in which a drafter creates a three-dimensional drawing.). You can then convert the CAD drawing again to get converted text.

The CAD drawing is locked. To unlock it, right-click the drawing, point to CAD Drawing Object, and then click Properties. Click the General tab, and then clear the Lock Position and Lock Cropping check boxes.

For shapes to be the correct size, the CAD drawing scale must be the same as the Visio drawing scale. You might have chosen a different CAD drawing scale, or you may have resized the CAD drawing by dragging the border of the inserted drawing. Make sure the CAD drawing scale and the Visio drawing scale are the same.

Change the scale of a CAD drawing

Set the drawing scale for a page

When you insert or convert a CAD drawing, Visio tries to open any files that are linked to the CAD drawing as external references. External reference files must be in the same folder as the Visio drawing or in a folder with the same path as when they were originally linked. For example, if your CAD drawing contains a link to an external reference file stored in C:\Parts, Visio will look for the external reference file in that folder.

If you are receiving CAD drawings from the drawing creator, ask if the drawing has any external reference files. If it does, place the reference files in the same folder as your Visio drawing, or re-create the folder structure for the reference files.

You can check the name, location, and modification date of the CAD drawing that was inserted into your Visio drawing by selecting the drawing and clicking Custom Properties on the Shape menu.