AutoCAD 2010/2011/2012 DWG Format

[#1]

Can anyone tell me if it is possible to change the default font used when inserting a symbol in mtext. eg the centerline symbol.

At the moment the font used is isocpeur and I would like it to be romans.

Thanks for any help in advance

[#2]

The list of fonts that support the centerline character is fairly small.  So unless you have the correct one(s) on your system and applied to a style you won't have access to that symbol.

I can't vouch for the list in the attached link, but it's a place to start.

http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2104/fontsupport.htm

Dave.

[#3]

Following along with heinsite's posting, see Autodesk user documentation for Symbols and Special Characters regarding the text symbols that are available in the following True Type (TTF) and SHX fonts.

There seem to be several postings that talk about this issue:

Centerline Symbol in MTEXT

AutoCAD Special characters in Mtext

So apparently if your current Text Style is not using one of the fonts in the list, and you insert a symbol that is not supported by that font then AutoCAD will automatically switch over to the Isocpeur font which does support the symbol.  So if you are wanting to use Romans which is on the list then perhaps you need to create a Text Style that uses Romans or set that style current before creating the MTEXT.

[#4]

I agree with all that has been said. What I was asking is there a system variable or some other way of making Autocad change the default from isocpeur to romans

[#5]

Look up SUBSTITUTE FONTS in AutoCAD's HELP for the built-in option, and as always, programming with a startup expanded Lisp is another approach.

[#6]

Yeah, the system variable is FONTALT.

Dave.

[#7]

Dave,

Changing the system variable fontalt does not change the font used to insert the symbols on my machine.

[#8]

No, it won't. All FONTALT does is set up a font on your system that will be used in the event you open a file that calls a font your system doesn't contain.

Ex.  Your FONTALT is set to Arial.  You don't have ComicSans on your computer.  You open a drawing that uses ComicSans.  Your system will display Arial for that text instead.

Now, if some special character is called, if Arial doesn't have it, it still won't display.  So if you want a special one, make sure your alternate font set includes it.

Dave.

[#9]

Dave

 Thank you for the reply. BUT it is not answering my question ie is it possible to change the default font used when inserting symbols. I agree that changing fontalt changes the font used for substitution of missing fonts BUT it does NOT change the font used for inserting symbols.

[#10]

John,

As far as I can tell special symbols are related to the font you use.  Many times a symbol may look alike in different fonts but they may have subtle differences.  If there is a default font setting for symbols I'm not aware of it or how to change it, sorry.

As an example, the attached file shows what happens to the Ohm symbol when inserted using different fonts for the text.  I would infer from this that if you have a specific symbol style you like maybe the trick is to figure out first what that is and then create (and use) a text style for it whenever you need to insert it.  Does that make sense?  Hope this helps.

Dave.