Figure 12-18: You can use the QUICKCALC command to calculate the intersection of two lines without drawing the lines.

9. Save your drawing.

Summary

A great deal of information is available to you in each drawing. In this chapter you read about:

Getting a general status listing

Listing system variable settings

Tracking drawing time

Getting information about individual objects by using the LIST, DIST, and ID commands

Calculating area and perimeters

Using the Properties palette to display all of an object’s properties

Dividing and measuring objects by placing point objects along them

Using AutoCAD’s QuickCalc calculator to use calculated results as part of your command input

In the next chapter, I explain how to create and edit text.

The next section covers the Justify option. The Style option is discussed later in this chapter.

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DTEXT continues to prompt you for lines of text so that you can type line after line. Unfortunately, you cannot control the spacing between the lines.

One advantage of DTEXT is that each line of text is a separate object, making it easy to move or copy individual lines of text.

DTEXT remembers the location of the previous line of text even if you’ve used other commands in the meantime. To continue text below the last line of text that you have created, press Enter at the Specify start point of text or [Justify/Style]: prompt.

Justifying single-line text

When you pick a start point for text, the relationship between the start point and the actual letters is determined by the justification. The start point is also called the insertion point. When you want to refer to text by using object snaps, you use the Insertion object snap. If you select text without first choosing a command, grips appear at the insertion point as well as the bottom-left corner.

By default, text is left-justified. To change the text’s justification, right-click and choose Justify at the Specify start point of text or [Justify/Style]: prompt. The command responds with this bewildering prompt:

Enter an option [Align/Fit/Center/Middle/Right/TL/TC/TR/ML/MC/MR/BL/BC/BR]:

Align and Fit offer two ways to fit text into a specified space. Both respond with the same two prompts:

Specify first endpoint of text baseline:

Specify second endpoint of text baseline:

Specify the beginning and the end of the text line. Align then prompts you for the text and squeezes or stretches the text to fit within the text line. The height of the text changes accordingly, to maintain the proportions of the font.

Fit adds the Specify height <0.2000>: prompt. Type the height that you want and then type the text. Fit also squeezes or stretches the text to fit within the text line, but maintains the text height that you specified, distorting the font letters to fit the space. Figure 13-1 shows an example of normal, aligned, and fitted single-line text.

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Figure 13-1: Normal (left-justified), aligned, and fitted text.

The other justification options are listed in Table 13-1. They specify the placement of the text’s insertion point in relation to the text line. Each insertion point is marked with a small x.

Table 13-1: Text Justification Options

Continued

318 Part II Drawing in Two Dimensions

Table 13-1: Text Justification Options

If you choose a justification that centers or right-justifies, the text does not appear with the proper justification until after you press Enter for the second time and return to the command prompt.

Setting the height

Setting the height of text is fairly straightforward. The default is 0.2 units, although this is not suitable for all applications. The main point to consider is the scale factor. If you’re drawing a house and plan to plot it at 1"=8' (1=96), you need to figure out how big to make the text so that you can still read it when it is scaled down.

For example, if you want the text to be 0.2 units high and your scale factor is 96, your text needs to be 19.2 inches high (0.2×96). On the other hand, if you’re drawing a very small object, such as a computer chip, and your scale is 0.10, then your text needs to be 0.02 inches high. The dimension text in Figure 13-2 is 5 inches high, but at a scale factor of 64, it plots at 5⁄64 inches high.

AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT calculate text height in units. Most word processors calculate text height in points. A point is 1⁄72 of an inch. Therefore, 12-point text, a standard for most business letters, is about 0.17 inches high. The default of 0.2 units, if you’re using inches as your unit, is just over 14 points, which is usually appropriate for annotating a drawing. (You don’t usually hold a drawing as close as you would a letter, so a larger point size is appropriate.)

For more information about changing the scale of text, see the section “Editing single-line text” later in this chapter.

Chapter 13 Creating Text 319

Figure 13-2: The dimension text in this drawing is 5 inches high.

Setting the rotation angle

The final prompt in DTEXT is the rotation angle. This angle applies to the entire line of text, not to individual characters. (You can specify slanted text, called obliqued text, using the STYLE command covered later in this chapter.) Figure 13-3 shows text rotated to 315 degrees.

Figure 13-3: Text rotated to 315 degrees.

Adding special characters and formatting

The DTEXT command does not offer the same type of formatting options that are available for paragraph text (covered later in this chapter). Therefore, you have to use codes to create special characters and formats. These codes are shown in Table 13-2.

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Table 13-2: Special Character Codes for Text Fonts

Code Results

%%o Toggles the overscore mode on/off.

%%u Toggles the underscore mode on/off.

%%d Draws a degree symbol (°).

%%p Draws a plus/minus tolerance symbol (±).

%%c Draws a circle-diameter dimensioning symbol ( ).

Figure 13-4 displays text using some of these codes, along with the entries that created them.

STEPS: Creating Text with DTEXT

1.Open ab13-a.dwg from your CD-ROM.

2.Save the file as ab13-01.dwg in your AutoCAD Bible folder. This is a master-bathroom plan drawing, as shown in Figure 13-5. Make sure that OSNAP is on. Set running object snaps for endpoint, midpoint, and intersection.

3.Choose Draw Text Single Line Text. Follow the prompts:

Current text style: “ROMANS” Text height: 0'-4 1/2"

Specify start point of text or [Justify/Style]: Right-click and choose Justify.

Enter an option [Align/Fit/Center/Middle/Right/TL/TC/TR/ML/MC/MR/BL/BC/BR]: Rightclick and choose BC.

Specify bottom-center point of text: Use the Midpoint running object snap to pick 1 in Figure 13-5.

Specify rotation angle of text <0>: Pick the endpoint at 2. Enter text: 2-0

Enter text:

Chapter 13 Creating Text 321

Figure 13-5: The master bathroom.

4.Start the DTEXT command again. Follow the prompts:

Specify start point of text or [Justify/Style]: Right-click and choose Justify.

Enter an option [Align/Fit/Center/Middle/Right/TL/TC/TR/ML/MC/MR/BL/BC/BR]: Rightclick and choose Middle.

Specify middle point of text: Pick 3 in Figure 13-5. (This point

doesn’t have to be exact.)

Specify rotation angle of text <45>: 0

Enter text: %%UMASTER BATH

Enter text:

5.Save your drawing. It should look like Figure 13-6.

Figure 13-6: The master-bathroom plan drawing with added single-line text.

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Using the TEXT command

The TEXT command was the original command for creating text. DTEXT was an update, showing the characters on your screen as you typed. The relationship between these commands is as follows:

When used in a drawing, the TEXT and DTEXT commands function identically.

You can type -text on the command line to use the original TEXT behavior, which ends the command after one line of text.

Only the TEXT command works in script files, menus, or AutoLISP routines. (See Parts VI and VII of this book for more information.)

Editing single-line text

As with any drawing object, the need often arises to edit your text. You can edit single-line text in two ways.

The most common way to edit single-line text is to use the DDEDIT command. Double-click the text. Remember that each line of text created with DTEXT or TEXT is a separate object.

The text appears in a border with your text highlighted in an edit box, as shown in Figure 13-7. You can start typing to completely replace the text or click where you want to change part of the text and use standard Windows techniques to edit the text. Press Enter or click anywhere outside the border. DDEDIT prompts you to select another annotation object. Press Enter to end the command.

Figure 13-7: Editing single-line text in place in the drawing.

Chapter 13 Creating Text 323

You can also change text using the Properties palette. Select any text object and click Properties on the Standard toolbar to open the Properties palette. Here you can edit the text content as well as every other conceivable property, including layer, linetype, lineweight, color, insertion point, justification, rotation angle, and several other properties that I cover in the next section on text styles.

Scaling text

You can use the SCALETEXT command to change the scale of selected text without moving the text insertion point. This command works with either one text object or several at once. All of the text objects stay in their original location.

To use SCALETEXT, follow these steps:

1.Choose Modify Object Text Scale.

2.Select the text objects that you want to scale.

3.At the Enter a base point option for scaling [Existing/Left/Center/Middle/ Right/TL/TC/TR/ML/MC/MR/BL/BC/BR] <Existing>: prompt, press Enter to use the existing insertion point of the selected text, or choose a new base point. (Your last

choice for this prompt becomes the new default, so if you used another option, type

e .) These options are the same as the Justify options described earlier in this chapter.

4.At the Specify new height or [Match object/Scale factor] <3/32>: prompt, rightclick and choose Scale factor to specify a scale factor, just as you would for the SCALE command (see Chapter 9). You can also type a new height or use the Match Object option to match the height of the selected text objects to another existing text object. The prompt asks you to select an object with the desired height.

5.If you have chosen the Scale Factor option, then type the factor that you want at the

Specify scale factor or [Reference] <2>: prompt.

6.If you want to specify the scale factor with reference to existing text or a value, use the Reference option. At the Specify reference length <1>: prompt, type a length or specify two points that measure the reference length. At the Specify new length: prompt, type a value or pick two points to indicate the new length.

Justifying text

The JUSTIFYTEXT command lets you change the justification of selected text objects without moving the text. To use JUSTIFYTEXT, choose Modify Object Text Justify. Then select the text objects that you want to modify. At the Enter a justification option [Left/ Align/Fit/Center/Middle/Right/TL/TC/TR/ML/MC/MR/BL/BC/BR] <Left>: prompt, right-click and choose the justification that you want.

STEPS: Editing Text

1.Open ab13-b.dwg from your CD-ROM.

2.Save the file as ab13-02.dwg in your AutoCAD Bible folder. This is an air and vacuum release valve, as shown in Figure 13-8.

324 Part II Drawing in Two Dimensions

3.Double-click the text 1/2" piping. A highlighted border appears around the text. Select only the text 1/2 and type 3/8. Press Enter or click anywhere outside the text border. The DDEDIT prompt continues to prompt you to select another annotation object. Press Enter to end the command.

4.Choose Properties from the Standard toolbar. Click Quick Select in the Properties palette. In the Quick Select dialog box, choose Text from the Object Type drop-down list. In the Operator drop-down list, choose Select All. Click OK to select all of the text objects in the drawing.

Figure 13-8: An air and vacuum release valve.

Thanks to the Army Corps of Engineers for this drawing.

5.Choose Layer. From the Layer drop-down list, choose TEXT. Choose Color. From the Color drop-down list, choose ByLayer. All text is now on the TEXT layer using the ByLayer color. Press Esc to remove the grips and see the result.

6.Select the text at the bottom of the drawing that reads N.T.S. From the grips you can tell

that it has a middle-left justification. Choose Modify Object Text Justify, or type justifytext on the command line. At the prompt, type bc .

The command ends. You can select the text again to see that the insertion point grip is now at the bottom-center of the text.

7.Choose Modify Object Text Scale, or type scaletext on the command line. Follow the prompts:

Select objects: Select the two lines of text at the bottom of the

drawing.

Select objects:

Enter a base point option for scaling

[Existing/Left/Center/Middle/Right/TL/TC/TR/ML/MC/MR/BL/BC/BR] <BC>:

Type e to use the existing base point.

Specify new height or [Match object/Scale factor] <1/8">: Right-click

and choose Scale factor.

Specify scale factor or [Reference] <2">: Type 1.5 .

8.You can click the Properties palette’s Close button to close it. Save your drawing.