Inventor Leader Text - HELP!!

[slimeboy]

I am learning inventor and I am trying to create a leader note with more than just one line of text. It is all one long, long line now and I am looking for handles to resize the "text box" but there is no "text box"!! Just one long line of text! I see that there is a "text box" button in the "format text" dialog box that pops up when I double click the text, but I can't select it! Its deactivated so when I click on it nothing happens. Please help because this is driving me crazy! Thank you!!!!

[BeKirra]

Not quite sure your problem.

Generally move your cursor to the place in the text box and click "enter" key if you want to start a new line of text.

Can you attach a screenshot?

[slimeboy · Accepted solution]

There is no "text box." That's the problem. I think you are referring to the text editor dialog box. I know I can manually break up the long line into shorter ones by hitting enter at various places. What I was talking about is a "box" that appears when you click on text, the "box" is actually just handles on the corners and midpoints of the sides of the text area. You can then change the size/shape of the text area by dragging the handles and the text rearranges itself to fit the "box." This is what happens with regular text in Inventor and most graphics/cad programs. In Inventor, that doesn't happen with leader text, there is no text box that appears when you click on the text. When you go into the text editor dialog box, there is a "text box" option button, but when I click on that, nothing happens; its "greyed out" so to speak. In the attached screenshot, the long single line leader is at the top. The other leader, below it, appears the way I want. However, I cheated to get that one. Its not really leader text. Its just a leader with no text and I moved regular text to the end of the leader. So the leader is not actually attached to the text. No good. I guess if I have to, I can just manually break up the lines like you suggested by hitting enter in the text editor dialog box.

Its not really a big deal, it was just annoying me to death.

[sam_m · Accepted solution]

Yup, there is no text box for leaders, the only option is to use a line break in the text editor.  Yes, it possibly a little annoying if you're expecting one, but as you don't really want essays all over your drawings it's not the end of the world.  Without wanting to say the wrong thing, if you've got a paragraph of text that needs lots of line breaks on a leader then you've probably got WAY too much text for a clear drawing - have the body of text in 1 place for the entire drawing and use leaders as small references and bullet points.

If you think a text box for leaders is something that Inventor could benefit from, you could make a suggestion here:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideastation/idb-p/v1232

[slimeboy · Accepted solution]

You're right.

[dan_inv09 · Accepted solution]

How do you search IdeaStation?

I could have sworn this was already up there - oh well, put it up again.

It's two to four lines depending on how the five or ten words line up - it's not to much text for a clear drawing.

This isn't leader text, it's a hole note:

0.63-11 UNC-2B TAP
1.50 DEEP (4) HOLES
EQUALLY SPACED
ON A 1.88 DIA B.C.

without line breaks:

0.63-11 UNC-2B TAP 1.50 DEEP (4) HOLES EQUALLY SPACED ON A 1.88 DIA B.C.

I copy the text and paste it in regular text that I drop where I want my leader text to end up, then play with that text box until it looks nice so I'm not just guessing at line breaks.

As you may guess from my example, I would lobby for hole notes to be included when text boxes are made options for more than just General Notes.