topic Re: Make text / Mtext update to copy another text / Mtext in AutoCAD Forum

Make text / Mtext update to copy another text / Mtext

Ali-pk — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 15:44:36 GMT

Good morning, hope all are doing well. Any way to have text / mtext blocks reference a master text / mtext block, so when I update the master block with whatever text I want, all other secondary blocks are updated to match that.

To give more details to my particular case, I have these text blocks with various numbers, and would like to change everything all at once, instead of manually changing each block.

Thanks in advance!

Re: Make text / Mtext update to copy another text / Mtext

RSomppi — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 16:05:30 GMT

Your post is hard to understand as your blocks look fine in the image. Can you explain what your difficulty is?

I'm going to guess here and say that you have attributes in your block and you need them to be text.

Re: Make text / Mtext update to copy another text / Mtext

clindner — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 16:08:43 GMT

Hi, @Ali-pk ,

If the text shown in these blocks are attributes, you might explore the ATTOUT and ATTIN Express tools commands. In a nutshell, it allows you to export attributes to a tab-delimited (CSV) file, make changes to the file, then re-import the new values updating the attributes.

Re: Make text / Mtext update to copy another text / Mtext

Ali-pk — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 16:49:32 GMT

I want to change all 5's in the photo to any number or letter. I only want to change one of the 5's and let all other text blocks referenced to the master "5" change to whatever number or letter I choose.

Re: Make text / Mtext update to copy another text / Mtext

Valentin_CAD — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 16:55:43 GMT

@Ali-pk ,

@Ali-pk wrote:
... Any way to have text / mtext blocks reference a master text / mtext block, so when I update the master block with whatever text I want, all other secondary blocks are updated to match that.

Read these links and see if it helps:

Re: Make text / Mtext update to copy another text / Mtext

clindner — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 16:59:59 GMT

A simple find/replace (via FIND) may suffice. You can be selective about what pieces of text get updated (instead of the entire drawing).

Or explore the use of FIELDS. Establish one of the '5's' as your main text. For the other pieces of text, edit the other text to be fields that reference ("point to") the contents of the "main text".

In the image below, the 'main text' is the one at the top. The add'l pieces of text are fields (hence the gray background). They will all update (after a REGEN) to reflect the contents of the main text.

Re: Make text / Mtext update to copy another text / Mtext

Ali-pk — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 17:06:57 GMT

Here is a better explanation of what I need. I have added basic "text" to my autocad file. All of these "text" read the same. I want to change the top "text" to any number/word/letter/etc, and then the bottom four "text" need to automatically update to read the same as the top "text".

Re: Make text / Mtext update to copy another text / Mtext

clindner — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 17:16:43 GMT

@Ali-pk wrote:
Here is a better explanation of what I need. I have added basic "text" to my autocad file. All of these "text" read the same. I want to change the top "text" to any number/word/letter/etc, and then the bottom four "text" need to automatically update to read the same as the top "text".

I think FIELDs will do exactly what you want. See my previous post.

In your example, the bottom four pieces of text would each contain a field that "point to" the contents of the top text. When it changes, a REGEN (or PLOT, or OPEN) will update the other four pieces.

You can control how/when the fields get updated via OPTIONS.

Re: Make text / Mtext update to copy another text / Mtext

Valentin_CAD — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 17:36:18 GMT

@Ali-pk ,

Type FIELD at the command line and select object type (Content), don't forget to Regen when updating.

Re: Make text / Mtext update to copy another text / Mtext

Kent1Cooper — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 17:51:03 GMT

Define it as a Block containing a piece of Text, instead of using just Text. Edit that Block, and all insertions of it will change likewise.

Or define it as a Block with an Attribute. Select all of them, and in Properties you can change that Attribute's value in all of them at once.

Or as Text, just select all of them, and in Properties you can change the text content of all of them at once.

If you need something that will find them all for you, rather than requiring you to select them, an AutLisp routine could be written that would find all Text objects that match the one you pick to change [including, if you like, limiting selection to the same Layer and/or Style and/or height, etc.], whether or not they are visible on-screen at the time, and change all of them to the same new value.

EDIT: The Field approach is interesting, but it has the drawback that you always need to know which one is the source object for the content, in order to change the correct one and have all the Field-based-content objects follow suit.

Re: Make text / Mtext update to copy another text / Mtext

RSomppi — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 17:49:24 GMT

Keep it simple. Edit the block and change out the attribute for the top number to text. You can then change the top number to anything and all the others will change.