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Creating Multiline Text

Single-line text is awkward when you want to type quite a bit of text. The main disadvantage is that single-line text does not wrap text to the next line to keep a neat right margin. Multiline text solves this problem and also offers many more formatting options compared to singleline text. The entire paragraph of multiline text is one object. Don’t confuse multiline text, which is also called paragraph text, with multilines, which I cover in Chapter 16.

Using the In-Place Text Editor

To create paragraph text, choose Multiline Text from the Draw toolbar. This starts the MTEXT command. The prompt tells you the current style and text height. For example:

Current text style: ROMANS. Text height: 4 1/2"

Figure 13-15: The In-Place Text Editor.

Type your text in the boundary. The In-Place Text Editor wraps the text to the next line when the text meets the right side of the bounding box that you specified. Although you’ve created a bounding box with four sides, only the paragraph width (that is, the left and right margins) limits the text. If you type too much text for the bounding box, the Text Editor expands the bounding box vertically.

To format selected or new text, use the buttons on the In-Place Text Editor toolbar:

Style: Choose any text style from the Style drop-down list.

Font: Choose any font from the Font drop-down list.

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Text Height: Choose a height from the drop-down list or type a new height in the Text Height box.

Bold: If Bold style is supported for the font, select text and click Bold.

Italic: If Italic style is supported for the font, select text and click Italic.

Underline: Select text and click Underline.

Undo: Undoes the last Mtext edit.

Redo: Redoes the last undo operation.

Stack/Unstack: Toggles stacking and unstacking fractions. Use this option to stack characters that are neither numerals nor immediately before or after the three AutoStack symbols (slash, pound sign, and carat). Select the text and click Stack/Unstack. See the next section for more details.

Color: Choose ByLayer or any color from the Color drop-down list. To choose from additional colors, choose Select Color to open the Select Color dialog box. (See Chapter 11 for details on using this dialog box.)

Ruler: Turns off the ruler.

OK: Click to close the editor. You can also close the editor by clicking anywhere outside the editor or by pressing Ctrl+Enter.

Options: Click to display a menu of options for the editor. You can access the same options by right-clicking in the text-editing area to display the shortcut menu. I discuss these options later in this section.

The new Options toolbar offers easy access to formatting tools. It displays the following buttons:

Left: Left-justifies the text in the editor and sets the insertion point to the left of the text.

Center: Centers the text in the editor and sets the insertion point to the center of the text.

Right: Right-justifies the text in the editor and sets the insertion point to the right of the text.

Top: Sets the insertion point of the text to the top of the text.

Middle: Sets the insertion point of the text to the middle of the text.

Bottom: Sets the insertion point of the text to the bottom of the text.

Numbering: Numbers selected text.

Bullets: Adds bullet points to selected text. I explain more about numbering and bullets later in this section.

Uppercase Letters: Creates lists with uppercase letters, as in A, B, C.

Insert Field: Inserts a field into the text. For more information, see the section “Inserting Fields” later in this chapter.

UPPERCASE: Converts selected text from lowercase to uppercase.

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Justification: Choose a justification from the submenu. The justifications are discussed in the “Justifying single-line text” section earlier in this chapter. You can set these same justifications by combining a horizontal and a vertical justification on the Options toolbar.

Find and Replace: Opens the Find and Replace dialog box so that you can find or replace specified text. If you want the search to match the case of the specified text, choose Match Case. If you want to restrict the search to whole words that match the specified text, choose Whole Words. If you only want to find text, ignore the Replace text box. To both find and replace text, enter text in both boxes. Make sure that the cursor is at the beginning of the text if you want to search the entire Mtext object.

Select All: Selects all of the text.

AutoCAPS: Automatically changes newly typed and imported text to uppercase, even if the Caps Lock key is not on. (And it’s a cute pun on AutoCAD.)

Remove Formatting: Removes formatting, such as bold and italic. This command does not remove color or font changes.

Combine Paragraphs: Combines separate paragraphs into one. Select the paragraphs that you want to combine before applying this command.

Character Set: Lets you choose the language that you want to work with, so that you have the characters that you need for that language.

Tip The TEXTTOFRONT command moves all text in your drawing to the front of the drawing order. For the background mask to work, your text needs to be on top, so that you can use this command when you are creating text with background masks. The display order of objects is controlled by the DRAWORDER command, which I discuss in Chapter 27, at the end of the “Controlling image display” section.

After you finish creating multiline text, close the editor in one of three ways:

Click OK on the Text Formatting bar

Click anywhere outside the In-Place Text Editor (but inside the drawing area)

Press Ctrl+Enter

Figure 13-17: Use the Background Mask dialog box to create a background around your text so that other objects do not obscure the text.

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Creating Stacked Fractions Automatically

You can create automatic stacked fractions and tolerances as you type, by using a system similar to those described earlier for creating special characters with DTEXT/TEXT.

You can also type unstacked fractions (as in 1/2), select the fraction text, and then click Stack/ Unstack on the Character tab. To create stacked fractions as you type, open the In-Place Text Editor and follow these steps:

1.Type the numerator, which is the character that you want on top.

2.Type the character that defines the fraction format that you want (see the example):

•Type a slash (/) to create a fraction separated by a horizontal line.

•Type a pound symbol (#) to create a fraction separated by a diagonal line.

•Type a carat (^) to create a tolerance stack, which is like a fraction separated by a horizontal line, except that there is no horizontal line.

Typed as 3/5

Typed as 3#5

Typed as 3^5

3.Type the denominator.

4.Type a space (or other nonnumeric character). The AutoStack Properties dialog box opens.

5.Change any settings that you want to change, and click OK to create the stacked fraction. To use the settings in the AutoStack Properties dialog box:

Uncheck Enable AutoStacking to disable the automatic stacked fraction feature.

Uncheck Remove Leading Blank if you want to retain a space between whole numbers and fractions.

Choose whether you want the slash to result in a fraction with a horizontal line or a fraction with a slash. This choice does not affect how the pound sign and carat work. If you want the slash to result in a fraction with a slash (which would seem to make more sense), then you do not have an automatic way to create a fraction with a horizontal line.

Check Don’t Show This Dialog Again; Always Use These Settings to stop the dialog box from opening when you create automatic stacked fractions.

Click OK to create the stacked fraction, or Cancel to leave the numbers as you typed them.

AutoStack works only with numerals immediately before and after the slash, pound sign, and carat.

Continued

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Continued

You can also set the properties of individual stacked fractions. Right-click the fraction in the InPlace Text Editor and choose Stack Properties from the menu. In the Stack Properties dialog box, you can change the following properties:

Text: Edit the upper and lower text.

Style: Change the fraction style. (Refer to the example under step 2 for the three possible styles.)

Position: Position the fraction so that the top, center, or bottom is aligned with other text.

Size: Change the size of the numbers that make up the fraction. Fraction numbers are usually smaller than regular numbers.

Specifying and changing line spacing

You can specify the spacing between lines in multiline text. Line spacing is useful for fitting text into a schedule or table in your drawing. Of course, you can also use the table feature, which I discuss in the “Creating Tables” section later in this chapter. To set line spacing, follow these steps:

1.Start the Mtext command.

2.At the Specify first corner: prompt, pick the first corner of your Mtext box.

3.At the Specify opposite corner or [Height/Justify/Line spacing/Rotation/Style/Width]: prompt, choose Line spacing.

4.At the Enter line spacing type [At least/Exactly] <Exactly>: prompt, choose Exactly.

5.At the Enter line spacing factor or distance <1x>: prompt, type a number, such as 1, to specify a one-unit space between lines of text. (If you type 1x, you get single line spacing, which varies according to the size of the text.)

6.Continue with the command.

This setting persists for future Mtext objects. To change existing line spacing, select (but do not double-click) the multiline text object. Open the Properties palette and set one or more of the following:

Line space factor: Specifies line spacing as a multiple of lines. Single line spacing is 1.0000, and double line spacing is 2.0000.

Line space distance: Specifies line spacing in units. Use this measurement (along with a line space style of Exactly) to fit text into an existing table or schedule.

Line space style: Choose At Least (the default) to adjust line spacing based on the height of the largest character in the line of text. Choose Exactly to specify line spacing that is the same, regardless of differences in character height.

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Specifying width and rotation

To change the width of an Mtext object, you can use its grips:

1.Select the Mtext object.

2.Click one of the grips that you want to stretch to make it “hot.” (For instructions on using grips to edit objects, see Chapter 10.)

3.At the Specify stretch point or [Base point/Copy/Undo/eXit]: prompt, pick a new location for the grip, in order to make the multiline text wider or narrower.

You can use the Properties palette to change the width and height. You can specify the exact width when creating the Mtext object by using the Width option after you specify the first corner of the Mtext box. Otherwise, you generally specify the width by picking the two corners of the Mtext box.

To rotate an existing Mtext object, use the Properties palette or use the grips:

1.Select the Mtext object.

2.Click one of the grips to make it “hot.”

3.Right-click and choose Rotate.

4.At the Specify rotation angle or [Base point/Copy/Undo/Reference/eXit]: prompt, pick a new location for the grip or type a rotation angle.

You can also specify the rotation while creating the Mtext object. Use the Rotate option that appears on the command line after you specify the first corner.

Editing paragraph text

To edit paragraph text, double-click the text to start the In-Place Text Editor.

Make your changes in the edit box. The techniques are similar to those in any word processor. You can:

Select text and press Del to delete the text or type to replace the selected text.

Click to move the insertion point to where you want to insert text and start typing. (To type over text, press Insert to enter overtype mode.)

Use the toolbar or shortcut menu (right-click) to change formatting.

To change characters, you must first highlight the characters. This lets you make height or font changes to individual words or even letters. When changing properties that affect the entire paragraph, such as justification, you do not first highlight the characters.

If you right-click in the In-Place Text Editor with the cursor on a field, you have options to edit the field, update it, or convert it to regular text. For more information about fields, see the section “Inserting Fields” later in this chapter.

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Importing text

As mentioned earlier, you can import text using the In-Place Text Editor. You can also import text in three other ways:

STEPS: Creating Multiline Text

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

2.Save the file as ab13-05.dwg in your AutoCAD Bible folder. This is a plat drawing, as shown in Figure 13-18.

3.Choose Multiline Text from the Draw toolbar. At the prompts, pick points 1 and 2 in Figure 13-18. The In-Place Text Editor opens. In the Text Height box, type a height of 12.5. In the main editing box, type the following:

Containing 108.33 acres including 5.97 acres existing R.O.W. and 4.56 acres proposed R.O.W.

4.Highlight the text 108.33 and click Underline. Right-click in the text window and choose Justification Middle Left. Click OK to place the text.

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4 5

1

2

3

Figure 13-18: The plat drawing.

Thanks to Bill Maidment of Cantech, Inc., Fairfield, Iowa, for this drawing.

5.Open Windows Explorer (Start Programs Windows Explorer). Find ab13-c.txt on your CD-ROM. Move the Windows Explorer window so that you can see both ab13.txt and your drawing screen. Drag ab13-c.txt from the Windows Explorer window to 3 in Figure 13-18. If necessary, pick a grip, press the Spacebar once to choose the Move option, and click at the proper location.

6.Select the text and open the Properties palette. (Click Properties on the Standard toolbar.) Next to the Width item, type 500 . Next to the Height item, type 12.5 .

7.Use ZOOM Window to zoom in on the new text. This text was originally single-line text in an older drawing. You can see why you wouldn’t want to retype it!

8.Choose Zoom Previous on the Standard toolbar to return to your original view. Use Zoom Window to zoom in to the area bounded by 4 and 5. Set the current layer to 0, which is a gray color.

9.Above the text about the proposed R.O.W. (right of way) is a yellow centerline. You want to place text on that line with a background mask so that the line doesn’t make the text hard to read. Choose Multiline Text from the Draw toolbar.

10.At the prompt, pick 4 and 5, centering the boundary box around the yellow centerline. In the Text Height box of the Text Formatting toolbar, change the text to 12.5. The text style should be ROMANS. Type the following text:

64TH AVE N.W. EXISTING R.O.W. 66' – CURRENT

11.Press the Spacebar to add a space after CURRENT, and right-click to open the shortcut menu. Choose Symbol Center Line to add the centerline symbol to the end of the text.

12.Right-click and choose Background Mask. In the Background Mask dialog box, select the Use Background Mask check box. Choose Red as the background color and click OK. Click anywhere outside the In-Place Text Editor to place the text. You can see that it uses the centerline symbol and has a red background that hides the yellow centerline behind the text.