27 Sep, 2015

Autocad Text Box Command Block
Autocad Text Box Command Generator

If you’ve ever needed to put a frame around your AutoCAD text objects, then you’ll appreciate this quick tip from Autodesk Evangelist Lynn Allen who shows you three very different ways to accomplish that very goal — all with different advantages!

AutoCad:: Lost Text Input Box? I'm using AutoCAD 2012LT and have somehow lost the text command input box, that shows what commands I am typing in, at the bottom of the screen. I am using the program in Classic View rather than Ribbon view. Sep 27, 2015 But it is a fast, speedy way to put text — excuse me, to put a boundary box around your text. The trick there is you have to — you can't do it in the MText Editor, you can't do it as you are putting the text on the screen. You have to put the text on the screen and in your drawing file, and then go into Properties. To relocate text with the keyboard, highlight the desired text, press Ctrl+X on the keyboard, place the cursor where you want the text to be relocated, and then press Ctrl+V on the keyboard. Jeffery's version of the text shadow box includes a dialog box that lets you set the thickness and direction of the shadow (figure 4). Copy the two files SBOX.LSP and SBOX.DCL from the download file to a folder in AutoCAD's search path. Load the AutoLISP code in SBOX.LSP and type SBOX at the Command line to display the dialog box.

Video Transcript

Hello there, this is Lynn Allen. Thank you so much for joining me for another AutoCAD tip, courtesy of the fabulous Cadalyst magazine. I'm coming to you from Santiago, Chile, where it is really quite cold. So that would mean that it is chilly in Chile. Oh yeah, I said it. Let's move along.

Today I'm going to be sharing with you three different ways to put a boundary around your text — three different ways of going about it. That's something that we end up having to do from time to time.

The first way is probably the most logical. Maybe not the fastest or easiest, but by all means, there's nothing wrong with simply going into the Rectangle command and drawing a good old rectangle around your text. Of course, you can control the width, you can control the layer, so on and so forth. That's pretty basic. I'm going to undo that. Not very exciting. Makes it a little tougher for you to control the exact distance the rectangle is from the text. Am I right?

Okay, let's take a look at an Express Tool that may not be very obvious because the name of the Express Tool is TCircle, which makes you think that it's only going to allow you to put a circle around objects. But in reality, it will let you do other things as well. It allows you to do rectangles, and it allows you to do slots around objects. I'm going to go ahead and select this text over here.

You'll see that it asks you for an offset factor. I like that. That's a little bit easier than using the Rectangle command. So I have complete control of the size of that rectangle that's going to go around my text. Here you'll see — enclose text with circles, slots, or rectangles. I'm in for rectangles, and I want the same distance all the way around it. There you'll see that I very quickly, very easily now have a boundary around my text. That's number 2.

The last one is only for those of you who have AutoCAD 2016. It's got kind of an interesting way of going about it. I'm going to select this mtext over here. I'm going to go into Properties, and you'll see if I slide this down, there is a new option inside of AutoCAD 2016, only in Properties. Don't ask me how to get to it any other way.

It allows you to say — you can see it showing up already — it allows me to say 'Yes.' It will put a frame around my text, as it likes to call it there — rectangle around my text. Do I have any control over exactly the size of the rectangle, how far off it is from the text — absolutely not. I have no idea how to control that. But it is a fast, speedy way to put text — excuse me, to put a boundary box around your text. The trick there is you have to — you can't do it in the MText Editor, you can't do it as you are putting the text on the screen. You have to put the text on the screen and in your drawing file, and then go into Properties.

So that is three different ways to put a bounding box or a frame or a rectangle — whatever you want to call it — around your text. Pick the one that's easiest for you to work with and does the job for you. I will see you back here in two more weeks. Take care.

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Multiline Text

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This chapter is from the book 

Inside AutoCAD 2005

This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book 

Multiline Text

The TEXT command can be used to add multiple lines of text, yet each text object is added as a separate object. Often, you want to add multiple lines of text as a single object. In such cases, you need the MTEXT command, issued by choosing Multiline Text from the Draw toolbar or from the Text submenu of the Draw pull-down menu.

After you start the MTEXT command, you are prompted to select the first corner point of a window. This window is used to determine the point where the mtext object will exist. By default, the mtext object is created with a top-left justification. If you want, you can change the justification type to one of eight others: TC (Top Center), TR (Top Right), ML (Middle Left), MC (Middle Center), MR (Middle Right), BL (Bottom Left), BC (Bottom Center), or BR (Bottom Right). These justification types are similar to those available with the TEXT command (refer to Figure 14.5), except that they apply to the whole mtext object and not just a single line of text.

Autocad Text Box Command Block

You then indicate the desired width of the mtext window. A width of zero disables the automatic word wrap feature of the Text Formatting dialog box. With that setting, you must press the Enter key when you want to start a new line of text.

Several other command line options appear, but many of these are easier to set through the Text Formatting dialog box (see Figure 14.9). The Text Formatting interface is divided into two parts. The bottom part is the editor, and the top part controls the properties, which are described in detail in later sections.

Figure 14.9 The Text Formatting dialog box.

Creating Mtext Objects

Previous versions of the Text Formatting editor were somewhat crowded with icons and tabs. It was revamped in AutoCAD 2004 and reduced to the bare essentials needed to produce text. The plethora of options still exists, however, and the options are now located in the right-click shortcut menu. As shown in Figure 14.10, there are many options related to creating mtext that can be taken advantage of.

NOTE

Several options, Line spacing and Rotation, are still only available at the command line before the dialog box appears.

Figure 14.10 The right-click shortcut menu has many features, as well as several submenus.

In the following exercise, you learn about the various aspects of creating and editing mtext objects.

Exercise 14.1 Using MTEXT to Create Paragraphs of Text

Open the drawing 14EX01.dwg from the accompanying CD. It contains several predefined text styles that we will utilize.
Start the MTEXT command by choosing the Multiline Text tool from the Draw toolbar. AutoCAD reports at the command line: Current text style: 'Standard' Text height: 0.2000

This indicates which text style is current and what height will be active in the editing dialog.

At the Specify first corner prompt, go ahead and pick the upper-left corner mark.

TIP

The little text sample attached to the cursor is adjustable. Normally it reads abc, but you can change the MTJIGSTRING system variable to whatever you would like it to read.

After you pick the first corner, you then are permitted to make changes to the current mtext settings, as shown in the prompt:

Specify opposite corner or [Height/Justify/Line spacing/Rotation/Style/Width]

Similar in nature to the TEXT command, you adjust the size of the text, its justification, and other properties prior to entering the editor. We pass on this now; go ahead and specify the opposite corner by using the lower-right corner mark. The Text Formatting dialog then appears.

TIP

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