264 Part III: If Drawings Could Talk
In most cases, adding text, dimensions, and other descriptive symbols is something that you should do later in the drafting process, after you’ve drawn at least some of the geometry. In CAD drawings, text and other annotations are usually intended to complement the geometry, not to stand alone. Thus, you generally need to have the geometry in place before you annotate it. Many drafters find that it’s most efficient to draw as much geometry as possible first, and then to add text annotations and dimensions to all the geometry at the same time. In this way, you develop a rhythm with the text and dimensioning commands instead of bouncing back and forth between drawing geometry and adding annotations.
As we mention in Chapter 4, AutoCAD’s annotative objects present a streamlined way of adding notes, dimensions, and other annotations to your drawings. This chapter introduces annotative text, and subsequent chapters cover annotative dimensions and hatches. See the “Annotatively yours” sidebar, later in this chapter, for some background.
Getting Ready to Write
In AutoCAD, adding text to a drawing is very similar to adding it to a wordprocessing document. Here are the basic steps, which we explain in more detail in the sections that follow:
1.Select an existing AutoCAD text style, or create a new style, that includes the font and other text characteristics you want to use.
Just like a word processor, AutoCAD uses styles — collections of formatting properties — to control the appearance of drawing text. We explain text styles in the next section.
2.Make an appropriate layer current.
To make your AutoCAD drawing efficient and easy to edit for both you and others, create text on its own layer. Most drafting offices already have a set of CAD standards that establish specific layers for text and other object types.
3.Run one of these commands to draw text:
•TEXT: Draws single-line text.
•MTEXT: Draws paragraph (also called multiline) text.
4.Specify the text alignment points, justification, and (if necessary) height.
5.Type the text.
6.(Optional) For annotative text, assign additional annotation scales to the text you just typed, if desired.
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Chapter 13: Text with Character 265
Annotatively yours
One of the great things about AutoCAD is that it offers multiple ways of accomplishing your drafting tasks. This usually comes about because successive releases of AutoCAD add new or improved methods of performing existing tasks. You’re almost always better to adopt the newer methods, but in this book, we try to give you a taste of the older methods because there are literally billions of existing drawings out there that were created by using the older methods — and you’re bound to encounter them sooner rather than later in your career. Text and dimensions are prime examples of this. We cover text annotations in this chapter and dimensions in the next.
AutoCAD supports three different methods for annotating your drawings:
drawing geometry. And you may have to duplicate notes in each layout.
Add text and dimensions in model space by using annotative text and dimension styles.
This is very similar to the first method, except that AutoCAD automatically does the size calculations for you.
Using annotative objects makes the most sense to us, as they can cover all plot scales. Also, because they’re in model space, they don’t have to be duplicated on multiple layouts. As you’re learning AutoCAD, one of the trickier concepts to grasp is the necessity of scaling text and dimensions to apparently ludicrous sizes (6"- high drawing text, for example) so that they plot correctly. Annotative objects allow you to keep your annotations in model space and specify
Add text and dimensions in model space, the paper size; AutoCAD does the scale calcu- multiplying the drawing scale factor (see lations for you. Better yet, details at different
Chapter 4 for details) times the desired plotted text height. For example, assume that someone has drawn a floor plan at a scale of 1/4" = 1'–0" (corresponding to a drawing scale factor of 48), and you want your notes to appear 1/8" high when the drawing is plotted to scale. You need to create text that’s 48 times 1/8", or 6", high. And that works fine — until you need to plot your drawing at a different scale, or you want to create a detail at a different scale.
This is particularly cumbersome if you’re working with feet, inches, and fractions but is a bit easier when you’re using decimals of inches or metric units.
Add text and dimensions in layouts in paper space. Because paper space is plotted at 1:1, you create annotations at their actual plotted size. The scale calculations are simple (“What’s 1/8" times 1, boss?” “I don’t know; my calculator’s broken.”), but sometimes it’s beneficial to have drawing annotations in the same space as the
scales are handled almost automatically.
Annotative object types include both singleline and multiline text (covered in the sections “Using the Same Old Line” and “Saying More in Multiline Text,” respectively, in this chapter), leaders (covered in the section “Take Me to Your Leader,” in this chapter), dimensions (covered in Chapter 14), hatches (see Chapter 15), and blocks and attributes (see Chapter 17). In theory, only annotative objects at the current annotation scale as set on the application or drawing status bar are displayed, but unfortunately, the default setting of a handy toggle beside the Annotation Scale list views all annotative objects at all scales, which confuses the issue more than a little. More on this later.
The annotative workflow might require an additional step compared with the other two methods listed previously. On the other hand, it eliminates the calculation steps, which can get messy when dealing with details at other scales. We describe the process in detail in the steps in this chapter and in the following chapters.
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266 Part III: If Drawings Could Talk
You’re probably familiar with most of these steps already — especially if you’ve ever used a word processor. In the next few sections of this chapter, we review the particularities of AutoCAD text styles, the two kinds of AutoCAD text, and ways of controlling height and justification.
Simply stylish text
AutoCAD assigns text properties to individual lines or paragraphs of text based on text styles. These text styles are similar to the paragraph styles in a word processor; they contain font and other settings that determine the look and feel of text. An AutoCAD text style includes
The font
A text height, which you can set to a specific value or leave at 0 for later flexibility
Special effects (where available), such as italic
Really special effects, such as vertical and upside down, which almost nobody uses
Before you add text to a drawing, use the Text Style dialog box to select an existing style or create a new one with settings that are appropriate to your purpose.
You can assign the annotative property to text styles in old drawings by opening the Text Style dialog box in the drawing, selecting the individual text style you want to update, selecting the Annotative check box, and then saving the drawing.
Most drawings require very few text styles. You can create one style for all notes, object labels, and annotations, and another text style for special titles. You may also want to create a unique text style for your dimensions (see Chapter 14 for more on dimension text). A title block may require one or two additional fonts, especially if you want to mimic the font used in a company logo or project logo.
As with layers, your office may have its own standards for text styles. If so, you’ll make everyone happy by following those standards. One of the best ways to make your use of text styles efficient and consistent is to create them in a template drawing that you use to start new drawings. (If your office is well organized, it may already have a template drawing with the companyapproved styles defined in it.) See Chapter 4 for information about creat-
ing and using templates. Another handy technique is to copy existing text styles from one drawing to another by using the DesignCenter palette. See Chapter 6 for instructions.
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Chapter 13: Text with Character 267
Font follies
When you create a text style in AutoCAD, you have a choice of a huge number of fonts. AutoCAD can use two different kinds of fonts: native AutoCAD SHX (compiled shape) fonts and Windows TrueType fonts:
SHX: In the Text Style dialog box, SHX font names appear with a drafting compass to the left of the name and display the .shx file extension. SHX fonts usually provide better performance because they’re optimized for AutoCAD’s use.
TrueType: In the Text Style dialog box, TrueType font names appear with a TT symbol to the left of the name and no file extension. TrueType fonts give you more and fancier font options, but they can slow down AutoCAD when you zoom, pan, or select and snap to objects. TrueType fonts also can cause greater complications when you exchange drawings with other AutoCAD users.
It’s okay to use a TrueType font sparingly for something like a title-block logo, but in general, you should stick with standard AutoCAD SHX fonts whenever possible.
The most popular AutoCAD font is Romans.shx (Roman Simplex). (You may also run into Simplex.shx, an older version of Roman Simplex.) Romans. shx is a good, general-purpose font for drafting in AutoCAD and closely resembles traditional hand lettering. Avoid complicated, thick fonts. They can slow down AutoCAD, and they’re usually more difficult to read than the simpler fonts. Remember, you’re doing CAD here, not fancy graphic design or reproductions of medieval manuscripts! The bad news is that AutoCAD defaults to using Arial, a TrueType font.
Whenever possible, avoid custom fonts, which are font files that don’t come with AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT (both programs come with the same fonts). AutoCAD installs its standard SHX fonts in the C:\Program Files\Autodesk\
AutoCAD 2013\Fonts folder, (C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD LT 2013\Fonts in AutoCAD LT); as long as you haven’t added any custom fonts to that folder, you can refer to it for a list of standard fonts. AutoCAD doesn’t embed font files in drawings; instead, it must refer to the font files installed locally under either AutoCAD (for SHX fonts) or Windows (for TrueType fonts). If you use a custom font of either type, exchanging your drawings with other people will be more complicated. If you must use a custom font, make a note of it and remember either to send it whenever you send the DWG file (assuming that the font isn’t copyrighted, which many custom fonts are) or to warn the recipients that the text will appear different on their systems. It’s far less hassle to avoid custom fonts altogether. See Chapter 20 for additional information about how to deal with fonts when you send and receive drawings.
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268 Part III: If Drawings Could Talk
Get in style
The following steps describe how to select an existing text style or create a new one before you enter text into a drawing. If you want to experiment with an existing drawing that contains a variety of text styles, you can download the AutoCAD sample drawings from www.autodesk.com/autocad-samples. Look for
architectural_-_annotation_scaling_and_multileaders.dwg.
1.On the Ribbon’s Home tab, click the Annotation panel’s label to open the slideout and then click Text Style.
The Text Style dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 13-1.
Figure 13-1: Text — with style.
2.In the Styles list, select each style in turn to examine the properties of the text styles that have been created in this drawing.
Note the font name and look at the Preview panel in the lower-left corner of the dialog box to get a feel for what the different fonts look like.
3.If you find a suitable text style, select it in the Styles list, click Set Current, and then skip to Step 9.
What makes a text style suitable depends on industry practices, office standards, and personal preferences about how the text should look. The information in previous sections may help you decide. If not, ask an experienced drafter in your office or look at some printed drawings and try to match the text on those. If you’re starting from scratch, we highly recommend that you use annotative styles — look for the triangular symbol beside the style name.
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Chapter 13: Text with Character 269
4.If you don’t find a suitable text style or if you prefer to create your own text style, click New.
Pay attention to the style that’s current when you click New. If it’s an annotative style, your new style will be annotative; if the current style isn’t annotative, the new style won’t be, either. It’s easy enough to select or deselect the Annotative check box, but you may overlook this action at first.
The New Text Style dialog box appears, with a text box for you to type a name.
5.Type a name for your new text style and then click OK.
Your new text style is added to the Styles list and becomes the current style.
6.Choose a font from the Font Name list.
Romans.shx is the best all-purpose font for most drafting work. If you want to use a different font, review the font suggestions and warnings in the preceding section.
The font that you choose becomes the font that’s assigned to your new text style.
7.To create an annotative text style, select the Annotative check box. Deselect the check box for non-annotative text.
Click the i icon next to the Annotative label to open AutoCAD’s online help and find out more.
8.Adjust the remaining text style settings.
The text style shown in Figure 13-1 has the following setup:
•Paper Text Height (just Height for non-annotative styles) = 0.0
•Width Factor = 1.0
•Oblique Angle = 0
•All check boxes other than Annotative are deselected.
A text style height of 0.0 makes the style variable height, which means that you have to specify the height separately for each text object as it is created. Assigning a fixed (that is, nonzero) height to a text style forces all text that uses the style to be the same height. Variable height styles are more flexible, but fixed height styles usually make it easier to draw text of consistent height. The decision to use styles of variable height versus fixed height is another aspect of text that depends on office practice; if you work with other AutoCAD users, ask around.
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