Adding Single Words with the Single-Line Text Object

You may find that you're entering a lot of single words or simple labels that don't require all the bells and whistles of the multiline text editor. AutoCAD offers the single-line text object that is simpler to use and can speed text entry if you're adding only small pieces of text.

1. Click the Single Line Text tool in the Text control panel, enter dt↲, or choose Draw è Text è Single Line Text to issue the Dtext command.

   

2. At the Specify start point of text or [Justify/Style]: prompt, select the starting point for the text. Notice that the prompt offers the Justify and Style options.

3. If the current text style has a height of zero, the Specify height: prompt appears. You can enter a height value or indicate a height by clicking two points in the drawing area. You can also just press ↲ to accept the default height.

4. At the Specify rotation angle of text <current rotation angle>: prompt, enter a rotation angle, or press ↲ to accept the default, 0. You can specify any angle other than horizontal (for example, if you want your text aligned with a rotated object). Once you've entered an angle, you'll see a text I-beam cursor at the point you selected in step 2.

5. At the Enter text: prompt, enter the text you want. As you type, the word appears in the drawing as well as in the command window.

6. Press ↲ to move the cursor down to start a new line, or click a location in the drawing area to move to an entirely different location to continue your text.

7. Press ↲ without entering text to exit the Dtext command.

You can add single lines of text in different parts of your drawing fairly quickly. Dtext uses the current default text style setting.

If you make a typing error while using Dtext, you can select the text in the drawing with your cursor and make the appropriate changes just as you would in a word processor. You can also paste text from the Clipboard into the cursor location by using the Ctrl+V keyboard shortcut or by right-clicking the command line to access the shortcut menu.

Even if you don't create a Dtext object, you may encounter them as you edit drawings created from other sources. Fortunately, they are easy to edit.

When you double-click a Dtext object, the text highlights and a box appears around the text. You can then either start typing to replace the entire text or click a location to add or delete text, just as you would in any text editor.

If you need to change other properties of single-line text, you can use the Properties palette. Select the Dtext object, and then right-click and choose Properties from the shortcut menu. You can then edit the text-related properties such as style, height, rotation angle, and width factor. (See Chapter 4 for more about the Properties palette.)