AutoCAD 2005 and AutoCAD LT 2005. No Experience Required
Authors: Frey D.
Published year: 2003
Pages: 70-72/159

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Are You Experienced?

Now you can…

create a predefined hatch pattern and apply it to a drawing
set up and apply user -defined hatch patterns
create a polar array of a line
use lines to indicate a curved surface
modify the scale of a hatch pattern
modify the shape of a hatch pattern
control the origin of a hatch pattern
create and populate a tool palette for blocks, hatches, or commands

Chapter 10: Controlling Textin a Drawing

Overview

Setting up text styles
Placing new text in the drawing
Modifying text in a drawing
Working with grid lines
Managing single-line and multiline text
Creating a table

You will have many uses for text in your drawings, including titles of views, notes, and dimensions. Each of these may require a different height, orientation, and style of lettering. To control the text, you will need to learn three basic operations:

Determine how the text will look by setting up text styles.
Specify where the text will be and enter it into the drawing.
Modify the text already in your drawing.

AutoCAD offers two types of text objects: single-line and multiline. Single-line text makes a distinct object of each line of text, whether the line is one letter or many words. This type of text is useful for titles of drawings, titles of views within a drawing, room labels, and schedules. Dimensions, tables, and longer notes are done with multiline text. AutoCAD treats a whole body of multiline text as one object, whether the text consists of one letter or many paragraphs.

The two types of text share the same text styles, but each has its own command for placing text in the drawing. When you modify text, you can use the same commands for either type of text, but the commands operate differently for multiline than for single-line text. Any text used in dimensioning —a process by which you indicate the sizes of various components in your drawing—is handled slightly differently from other text and will be covered in Chapter 11.

We will progress through this chapter by first looking at the process of setting up text styles. We will then start placing and modifying single-line text in the cabin drawing. Finally, we’ll look at the methods for creating and controlling multiline text as it is used for notes and tables. If you work in a non-AEC profession or trade, be assured that the features presented in this chapter will apply directly to your work. The basic principles of working with text in AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT “cross the curriculum” (an educational metaphor) and apply universally .

Setting Up Text Styles

In AutoCAD, a text style consists of a combination of a style name , a text font, a height, a width factor, an oblique angle, and a few other, mostly static settings. You specify these text style properties with the help of a dialog box that opens when you start the Style command. You will begin by setting up two text styles—one for labeling the rooms in the floor plan and the other for putting titles on the two views. You will need a new layer for text.

Open the Cabin09c drawing.
Create a new layer named Text1. Assign it a color , and make it current.
Freeze the Hatch-plan-floor and Hatch-plan-wall layers. Be sure all other layers are thawed and turned on. Your drawing should look like Figure 10.1.

Figure 10.1: The Cabin09c drawing with the Hatch-plan-floor and Hatch-plan-wall layers frozen

Text and Drawing Scale

When you set up text styles for a drawing, you have to determine the height of the text letters . To make this determination, you first need to decide the scale at which the final drawing will be printed.

In traditional drafting, you can ignore the drawing scale and set the actual height of each kind of text. This is possible because, while the drawing is to a scale, the text doesn’t have to conform to that scale and is drawn full size .

In AutoCAD, a feature called layouts makes it possible to set the height of text in the same way—that is, at the height at which it will be printed. You will learn about using layouts in Chapter 13. In that chapter, you’ll place text on layouts; in this chapter, I’ll demonstrate how text is used without layouts. You’ll place text in the cabin drawing. The drawing is actual size, but the text has to be much larger than actual size because both the drawing and its text will be scaled down by the same factor in the process of printing the drawing.

A layout is a drawing environment that has been overlaid on the drawing of your project. The layout and the drawing are part of the same file.

In this drawing, we will use a final scale of ¹ ⁄ 8 " = 1'-0". This scale has a true ratio of 1:96 and a scale factor of 96. (See Table 9.1 in Chapter 9.) If you want text to be ¹ ⁄ 8 " high when you print the drawing at ¹ ⁄ 8 -inch scale, multiply ¹ ⁄ 8 " by the scale factor of 96 to get 12" for the text height. You can check that calculated text height by studying the floor plan for a moment and noting the sizes of the building components represented in the drawing. You can estimate that the room label text should be about half as high as the front step is deep, or 1 foot high.

Defining a Text Style for Room Labels

Now that you have a good idea of the required text height, it’s time to define a new text style. Each new AutoCAD .dwg file comes with one predefined text style named Standard. You will add two more.

Type st to start the Style command and open the Text Style dialog box (see Figure 10.2). In the Style Name area, you will see the default Standard text style.

You can also start the Style command by choosing Format Ø Text Style.

Figure 10.2: The Text Style dialog box, in which text styles are set up
Click New to open the New Text Style dialog box. There is a Style Name text box with style1 in it, highlighted. When you enter a new style name, it will replace style1.

By default, all new .dwg files have the Standard text style as the current text style.
Type Label . The New Text Style dialog box closes , and in the Text Style dialog box, Label appears in the Style Name drop-down list. You have created a new text style named Label. It has settings identical to those of the Standard text style, and it is now the current text style. Now you will change some of the settings for this new style.
Move down to the Font area and click the Font Name drop-down list to open it. A list of fonts appears; the number of choices depends on what software is installed on your computer.

A font is a collection of text characters and symbols that all share a characteristic style of design and proportion.
Scroll through the list until you find romans.shx, and then click it. The list closes, and in the Font Name text box, the romans.shx font replaces the txt.shx font that was previously there. In the Preview area in the lower-right corner, a sample of the romans.shx font replaces that of the txt.shx font.
Press the Tab key to jump to the next text box. The Height setting is highlighted at the default of 0'-0".
Type 12 , and then press Tab again. A height of 1'-0" replaces the default height.
You won’t need to change any of the other parameters that define the new text style. They can all stay at their default settings.
Click Apply in the upper-right corner of the dialog box. The Label text style is saved with the current drawing and becomes the current text style.

Note
The current text style is similar to the current layer. All text created while a text style is current will follow the parameters or settings of that text style.

When you define a new text style, you first name the new style. This has the effect of making a copy of the current text style settings, giving them the new name, and making the new text style current. You then change the settings for this new style and save the changes by clicking Apply.

Defining a Second Text Style

Before you close the dialog box, define another text style.

Click New.
In the New Text Style dialog box, type Title and click OK. A new text style called Title has been created and is now the current text style. Its font, height, and other settings are a copy of the Label text style. Now you will make changes to these settings to define the Title text style.
Click the current font, romans.shx. The drop-down list of fonts opens. Scroll up one font and click romand.shx. The list closes, and romand.shx is displayed as the chosen font.

Romans.shx and romand.shx are frequently used fonts in AutoCAD. Romans ( formally named roman simplex) is usually applied to notes in the drawing. Romand (duplex) is a boldface version of romans and can be used for titles of views, titles of details, and dimensioning. Two more fonts in the roman font family—romanc and romant—are used for larger text.

Press Tab once to move to the Height text box, type 18, and then press Tab once more. The height is converted to 1'-6".

Tip

If you press after typing the height, the new style is automatically applied, meaning it is saved and made the current text style. Don’t do this if you need to change other settings for the style.

Click Apply, and then click Close.

Of the many fonts available in AutoCAD, you will use only a few for your drawings. Some are set up for foreign languages or mapping symbols. Others would appear out of place on architectural or technical drawings, but might be just right for an advertising brochure or a flier. Later in this chapter, you’ll have a chance to experiment with the available fonts.

Look back at Figure 10.2 for a moment, and note that the Standard text style has a height of 0'-0". When the current text style has a height set to 0, you are prompted to enter a height each time you begin to place single-line text in the drawing. The default height will be ³ ⁄ ₁₆ " (or 0.20 for decimal units and 2.5 for metric). Multiline text will use the default height of ³ ⁄ ₁₆ " unless you change it.

Now that you have two new text styles, you can start working with single-line text.

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