I routinely have to start at the building blocks of a scale whenever I need to change a scale or modify paper size. One of these days, I'm hoping it will click. In the meantime, I'm trying to take good notes for my future self to refer to.
In Architecture, scales are chosen for print and there is often a unit translation associated with the scale. For instance, the paper will be measured in inches and the real world coverage will be expressed in feet. The inch to foot relation is how the scale is expressed, not the unitless ratio.
Some common Architecture scales include:
- 1" = 1'-0"
- 1/2" = 1'-0"