topic Re: Text Spacing in AutoCAD Forum

Text Spacing

Anonymous — Tue, 26 Jul 2016 17:34:36 GMT

Hi,

I have a doubt regarding text spacing. In Auto cad how to find out the space before and after the text if we give the space the wrongly in before and after the text. Is there any notification for it or Is it any command,shortcut or lisp program and macro for it. Please share your ideas.

Regards,

Ruban.

Re: Text Spacing

steve216586 — Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:45:41 GMT

Double click on the text to invoke the text edit dialog box. Hit ctrl-A to select all text. (Even the space before or after) Then select proper text spacing in the editor. (Should be 1.00)

Re: Text Spacing

Kent1Cooper — Tue, 26 Jul 2016 21:20:04 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

....

I have a doubt regarding text spacing. In Auto cad how to find out the space before and after the text if we give the space the wrongly in before and after the text. Is there any notification for it or Is it any command,shortcut or lisp program and macro for it. ....

Welcome to these Forums!

[What you have is really a "question" -- yes, the meanings are somewhat related, but "doubt" means something different. English is an overly-complicated language....]

If you are talking about the spacing between lines in Mtext, the default spacing, when the "Line space factor" in Properties is set to 1.0, is part of the font definition, so it will not be the same for Mtext in all fonts. But you can see what the spacing is in the Properties box, and you can change it by giving it either a different Line space factor [a multiplier of the default] or a specific Line space distance. It can also be affected by whether the "Line space style" is set to "At least" or "Exactly," so read about that difference, too.

But also, keep in mind that those values are all about the spacing between the baselines of two line of text -- they are not about the empty space between the bottom of one line of text and the top of the line below. If that's what you mean by "the space before and after," I don't think there's anything that will show it to you directly, and you will probably need to subtract the text height from the line spacing.

OR, if you are not talking about line spacing, but space characters before and/or after the visible-character content, those can be eliminated pretty easily [Reply if that's what you need], but again, I don't think there's anything like a notification about them. But a routine could be made to look for them, and tell you if it finds any, if you want that.

Re: Text Spacing

pendean — Wed, 27 Jul 2016 13:12:44 GMT

Is this for MTEXT? If yes, you can change spacing in the mtext bar (also look up TSPACEFAC system variable if your older version of AutoCAD has it and you want to explore using it in a LISP)

Re: Text Spacing

upgbt-autocad — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 23:05:04 GMT

Vertical row Text spacing Single Line Text
I work almost entirely in 'single line ' DTEXT ( command TEXT ) ( > 25 years , this question has always bugged me )
All my technical drawings are on a 4x4 grid
Literally today by pure chance I copied a column of numbers from excel into the Text command

Much to my delight, with a text height of 2.5, each number is very close to being on the 4x4 grid

Running text height at 1.25, each line of text is has a spacing of very nearly 2.00.
A little bit of experimentation suggests that a text height of 1.245 will get you to within 0.017 unit of 200 rows of text when copied from a spreadsheet etc, close enough for most applications
A whole set of numbers can thus be copied from a column of Excel, copied into the TEXT command, then highlighted.

and dragged as one entity ( highlight all text > Space bar > move all objects ) onto grid.

The Text can be group scaled up to the desired text size, while still retaining it's near perfect grid location
Picture shows TEXT justified Centre, offset by vertical 1 unit for clarity

I have never been done this before. I have just sped up my workflow vastly...

Re: Text Spacing

Kent1Cooper — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 00:43:53 GMT

If you use TXT2MTXT to join them all into one MTEXT object, you can set the line spacing to exactly your desired 2.0, without needing to experimentally play with the text height, but at whatever text height you like [within reason -- there is a limit on the relationship of height vs. line spacing]. Make sure you use the Line space distance entry in the Properties palette [not the Line space factor -- that will adjust itself accordingly], and that the Line space style is set to "Exactly."

Re: Text Spacing

lucas_quinney — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 13:13:32 GMT

I am using the stencil font but want to space individual characters to ensure when the plasma table cuts it there is enough space to leave material.

Re: Text Spacing

Kent1Cooper — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 17:14:22 GMT

With content selected in Mtext [this does not work with plain Text], in the ribbon's Mtext editor, pull down the Formatting thing, and adjust the Tracking:

Re: Text Spacing

lucas_quinney — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 18:13:54 GMT

For example in the J and D, I want to ensure that the individual letter is spaced enough not from other letters but from itself to not bleed into the other part of the letter when cutting.

Re: Text Spacing

pendean — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 20:49:10 GMT

@lucas_quinney Kerning is what you seek (or seem to be describing), and that does not exist in AutoCAD. Sorry.

All you can do is covered by the reply from @Kent1Cooper

HTH

Re: Text Spacing

Kent1Cooper — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 16:57:41 GMT

@lucas_quinney wrote:

For example in the J and D, I want to ensure that the individual letter is spaced enough not from other letters but from itself to not bleed into the other part of the letter when cutting.

If you're talking about changing the positional relationship between parts of the same character, you're probably going to need to TXTEXP for heavy-Polyline outlines that are not locked together, and move the resulting pieces around manually.