Them's the Breaks!

I often get the question, “Why don’t my dimension lines break when I turn on the Break Lines option in my dimension properties?”

There is a little-known switch on the Dimensions page of the Document Properties that can have a major affect on the Break Lines option:

When active, Break around dimension arrows only causes the system to do just that: only dimension lines that cross arrows get broken. Clear the switch and you’ll get the behavior you’re looking for.