Last updated July 28, 2026
This erases every dimension in the drawing in one command. No selection, no confirmation, no undo prompt — you type it and the drawing is bare.
Of the four strippers on this site — the others handle text, mtext and leaders — this is the one to be most careful with, for a reason covered below.
It catches every kind of dimension
Unlike its sibling that handles leaders and misses multileaders, this one has no gap. AutoCAD stores linear, aligned, angular, radial, diameter and ordinate dimensions all under the same entity type, so a filter asking for dimensions gets the lot.
That completeness is exactly what you want when stripping a drawing for reuse, and exactly what makes it worth pausing over first.
The search covers the whole drawing database rather than what you can see, so dimensions on frozen layers, on switched-off layers and in every layout go too. A title block’s dimensions, a detail parked off to one side, a set of setting-out dimensions somebody froze rather than deleted — all included.
Dimensions are the expensive thing to lose
Worth saying plainly. Text can be retyped from a print. Dimensions carry measurements that were derived from the geometry, often placed with care over hours of work, and frequently associative — tied to the points they measure so they update when the drawing changes.
Erasing them throws all of that away, and redimensioning a drawing is a genuine day’s work rather than a nuisance. The routine gives you no warning and no preview of how many it found.
So: save first, every time. It uses AutoCAD’s own ERASE command rather than a low-level delete, so an immediate U does bring everything back — but only if you notice before doing anything else.
When it is the right tool
Preparing a drawing as a background for something else, where you want the geometry and none of the annotation. Stripping a supplied drawing before dimensioning it to your own standard. Clearing a template that was saved with a worked example still in it.
In each case the alternative is a crossing window over everything plus a filter, which is more clicks for the same result — and misses whatever is frozen.
Command reference
The command is DELDIM. The file is called “Delete Dimension.lsp” and the listing calls it Delete All Dimensions, but DELDIM is what you type.
How to load it
Unzip the download and load the .lsp file with APPLOAD when you need it. Of all the routines on this site, this is the one least suited to living in your Startup Suite. Our AutoLISP guide covers loading.
Step-by-step usage
- Save the drawing. Better still, work on a copy.
- Type DELDIM. Every dimension is erased immediately.
- If there were none it reports “No dimensions in this drawing!” and stops.
- Check your layouts and frozen layers, since those were included.
- If it was a mistake, type U before touching anything else.
Compatibility notes
Six lines of basic AutoLISP driving ERASE. Nothing in it can age, and the dimension entity type it filters on has not changed.
No dialog boxes and no Express Tools calls, so nothing requires the full product; LT users on LT 2024 or later, the release that brought AutoLISP to LT, should be able to run it. See what runs on AutoCAD LT.
Download
| Name: | Delete All Dimensions |
| Description: | Erase all dimensions in a drawing |
| Type: | AutoCAD AutoLISP Routine |
| Author: | Anon |
| File Size: | 1 Kb |
| Cost: | Free |
| Worked on: | AutoCAD |
| Download File: | Delete Dimension.zip |
Related routines
- DIMROTATE — fix dimensions rather than delete them.
- EPU — change one dimension’s precision.
- Delete All Text — the same idea for text.