I have been trying to purchase standards to cover drafting practices but they are expensive ad seem to cover very small areas, i.e. the size of the paper. Is there a good reference that covers all the drafting standards?
What country/system drawing standards do you want to follow?
If ASME then I'd start with ASME Y14.100 & ASME Y14.5M and then go from there. I use 14.3 & 14.35 with some regularity and others occasionaly.
If you want a secondary resource 'compendium' you could consider the Genium 'Modern Drafting Practices and Standards Manual' or Global Engineering Documents 'Drawing Requirements Manual'. However, these are't the source documents, they are build on ASME but sometimes reflect the authors preferences etc.
If by “reference” you mean textbook rather than stack of actual standard books, there is nothing I can add to posts by kenat and justkeepgiviner. Just couple of links: