270 Part III: If Drawings Could Talk

Dimensions use text styles to format the appearance of the dimension text. When you create a text style that you think you might use for your dimensions, you must set a height of 0. Otherwise, the setting that controls the dimension text won’t work, and your dimension text is likely to be either enormous or microscopic. This one should be a double warning because it’s one of the most common mistakes made by new AutoCAD drafters!

9.Click Apply and then click Close.

The Text Style dialog box closes, and the text style that you selected or created is now the current style for new text objects.

Taking your text to new heights

On the off chance that you’re choosing not to use annotative text styles, this section shows you why you might want to change your mind.

In Chapter 4, we describe the importance of choosing an appropriate drawing scale when you set up a drawing. We warn you that you need to know the drawing scale factor for tasks described in other chapters of this book. This is one of those chapters, and we’re about to explain one of those tasks! And when we’re done, remember — you can avoid all the arithmetic by using annotative text — it’s just a check box away!

Drawing scale is the traditional way of describing a scale with an equal sign or colon — for example 1/4" = 1'–0", 1:20, or 2:1. The drawing scale factor represents the same relationship with a single number, such as 48, 20, or 0.5. The drawing scale factor is the multiplier that converts the first number in the drawing scale into the second number.

Make it a point to determine the drawing scale factor of a drawing before you add non-annotative text to it.

Plotted text height

Most industries have plotted text height standards (AutoCAD refers to paper text height, which means the same thing). A plotted text height of 1/8" or 3mm is common for notes. Some companies use slightly smaller heights (for example, 3/32" or 2.5mm) to squeeze more text into small spaces.

Calculating non-annotative AutoCAD text height

To calculate non-annotative text height, you need to know the drawing scale factor, the desired plotted text height, and the location of the multiplication button on your calculator. Use the following steps to figure out text height:

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Chapter 13: Text with Character 271

1.Determine the drawing scale factor.

If you set up the drawing, you should know its drawing scale, as described in Chapter 4. If someone else set up the drawing, and is still around, ask that person!

Other methods of figuring out a drawing’s scale factor include searching the drawing for a bar scale or a text note that indicates the drawing scale, or if a printout is available, measuring dimensioned distances on the hard copy with an architectural or engineering scale if the drawing was plotted to a specific scale and not “to fit”. Finally, if the drawing dimensions are in model space, you can check the value of the DIMSCALE variable (the system variable that controls dimension scale), as described in Chapter 14.

2.Determine the height that your notes should appear when you plot the drawing to scale.

See the preceding “Plotted text height” section for suggestions.

3.Multiply the numbers that you figured out in Steps 1 and 2.

After you know the AutoCAD text height, you can use it to define the height of a text style or of an individual text object.

If you assign a nonzero height to a text style (Step 8 in the “Get in style” section, earlier in this chapter), all text that you create with that style will use the fixed height. If you leave the text style’s height set to 0, AutoCAD asks you for the text height when you draw single-line text objects.

This discussion of text height assumes that you’re adding non-annotative text in model space. In addition to annotative text in model space, there’s a third alternative. You can add annotative or non-annotative text to a paper space layout — for example, when you draw text in a title block or add a set of sheet notes that doesn’t directly relate to the model space geometry. When you create text in paper space, you specify the actual, plotted paper height instead of the scaled-up height.

One line or two?

For historical reasons (namely, because the AutoCAD text capabilities used to be much more primitive than they are now), AutoCAD offers two ­different kinds of text objects and two corresponding text-drawing commands. Table 13-1 explains the two commands, with their aliases shown in parentheses.

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272 Part III: If Drawings Could Talk

formatting, such as numbered or bulleted lists and columns, is possible.

Although you may be inclined to ignore the older single-line text option, it’s worth knowing how to use both kinds of text. The TEXT command is quite a bit simpler than the MTEXT command, and it’s still useful for entering short, single-line pieces of text such as object labels and one-line notes. And it’s the command of choice for CAD comedians who want to document their one-liners!

If you work in an office with people who’ve been AutoCAD users for more than a few years, you may hear them referring to DTEXT. For the last few releases, TEXT has been an alias for the DTEXT (D for Dynamic) command. However, lurking up in the dusty back corners of AutoCAD’s attic is a third text-creation command, also named TEXT (confused yet?); if you want to experience this creaky old command, type -TEXT. Unlike the current TEXT (formerly known as DTEXT) command, with -TEXT you get no onscreen feedback at all. In summary, TEXT begat DTEXT which begat TEXT . . . hey, don’t shoot the messengers! We just report on what we know!

Your text will be justified

Both the TEXT and MTEXT commands offer a bewildering array of text justification options — in other words, which way the text flows from the point or points that you pick in the drawing to locate it. For most purposes, the default Left justification for single-line text or Top Left justification for paragraph text works fine. Occasionally, you may want to use a different justification, such as Center for labels or titles. Both commands provide options for changing text justification. We point out these options when we demonstrate the commands later in this chapter.

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