Every project has text information – a lot of it.
So there are a lot of questions that need to be answered in your Standard.
Here are a few…
- Will you allow the use of True Type Fonts?
- Do you use only AutoCAD provided Fonts?
- What is the width ratio and height?
- Are TTF’s used in your company logos?
- Do you want MTEXT for everything?
- How do you set the text height?
- Will you use Annotation Scaling?
- When and where do you allow Fields to be used?
- Text inside Attributes – is that defined?
- Do you have unified Style names?
- What layer does the text go on?
The list could go on but you get the point. Any and all questins that may come to into the minds of your users need to be defined and embedded in your templates.
1 Comment To "CAD Standards – Questions about Text"
#1 Comment By Clint Hill On August 31, 2009 @ 2:16 PM
See the points and the section with ‘***’ below these points.
Specifically:
– Text is 95%(+) MTEXT unless otherwise prescribed.
– No annotation scaling is used as there are currently translation issues with other software.
– Use True Type fonts exclusively
– Use AutoCAD provided ARIAL.ttf font for all i.e. attributes, logos, etc.
– Default text height to width ratio of 1
– Unique text style name family
– Fields are used for drawing border’s filepath/name, application version, layout name. Future use of fields for viewport scale in detail/section titles
– Specific layer for text & general/keynotes
– Default text height set in a template file
***
My position is unique in that I am the sole CAD operator at our Nashville, TN manufacturing engineering support department. Before being hired here full-time last October, I worked via a contract (with my previous AEC-based company) and while in that capacity I completed the first comprehensive set of CAD standards for this company.
I can add that with the experience gained from over fifteen years of combined 2D-3D design work within manufacturing (machine design), tool and die) and working in multiple disciplines in a locally-based, large AEC firm, using various design software: the important things to keep in mind are consistency and simplicity in both in design execution and also in designing CAD standards.