Attribute text problems

Attribute text problems

baterluke
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Message 1 of 21

Attribute text problems

baterluke
Participant
Participant

I recently started using Autocad 2015 - when opening a part complete dwg the text in a simple attribute block was sized too big on my pc, different to where the dwg was created -  and mis-aligned. I could manually re-size but then the text would be too small etc on my colleagues machine.

 

Is there a global text/attribute setting anyone can help me with .

 

Thanks

 

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Message 2 of 21

imadHabash
Mentor
Mentor

Hi and Welcome to AutoDesk Forum,

 

By BATTMAN command you can globally make changes for attributes. would you please post - as CAD file - your problem to see it?

Imad Habash

EESignature

Message 3 of 21

Alfred.NESWADBA
Consultant
Consultant

Hi,

 

welcome @Anonymous.autodesk.com!

 

When you open a drawing the text can't be different to the state when it was saved, so something was modified.

When the drawing was created on another workstation then there is a mini-chance that your system does not find font files or has font files with the same name, but different properties ... that can be verified by starting command _STYLES and look to the defined textstyle settings.

 

>> different to where the dwg was created -  and mis-aligned

Can you show anything (like screenshots or plot) which shows how the text was sized and aligned before you opened it now and how it looks now alike?

 

And also an idea: could it be possible that you have got a paper or a pdf from the previous state of the dwg-file and when you open the file now it looks different? In that case you should make sure that you see the same layout or at least you set the same annotation scale setting. If the creator of that drawing worked with annotative objects you you look to a different layout or modelspace the text sizes may look different (depending on ANNOSCALE).

 

- alfred -

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alfred NESWADBA
ISH-Solutions GmbH / Ingenieur Studio HOLLAUS
www.ish-solutions.at ... blog.ish-solutions.at ... LinkedIn ... CDay 2026
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(not an Autodesk consultant)
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Message 4 of 21

baterluke
Participant
Participant
Thanks for response, the block with attributes is a circle with 2
lines of text in, one above the other , the lower text line is a ref
number, this block was created on a colleagues computer and looks fine
on their screen, when I opened the dwg the ref number text is too long
and goes outside the circle, I opened the dwg on my old pc with CAD
2011 and it looked fine, if I alter the block it will be wrong when
opened on my colleagues pc, I will upload dwg later as I am busy on
2011 at the moment.
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Message 5 of 21

RobDraw
Mentor
Mentor
If it is the same file, then one of you either don't have the font installed or have different definitions of the font.

Rob

Drafting is a breeze and Revit doesn't always work the way you think it should.
Message 6 of 21

baterluke
Participant
Participant
Thanks for reply, I have attached the file, the block/attributes I am
having problems with is the red circle with 2 lines of text in, as you
can see the text is too long for circle, but only on my CAD2015
machine , the same drawing opened on my CAD 2011 pc, or my colleagues
CAD 2015 has the text fitting nicely inside the circle , there have
been no changes to the drawing - it just appears differently on my CAD
2015.

Thanks
Luke
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Message 7 of 21

baterluke
Participant
Participant

Hi Thanks for reply, 

 

The problem is not how to change the attribute - the problem is the inconsistency between different CAD machines - i.e. The attribute is different on my pc to my colleagues although no changes have been made at all.

 

 

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Message 8 of 21

baterluke
Participant
Participant

Hello Thanks for reply , I have attached a section of the file , the problem vblock is the red circle with 2 lines of text inside, the text appears fine on my friends CAD2015 , also fine on my CAD2011 - but on my CAD 2015 the text is too long and doesnt fit inside the circle - there has been no changes to dwg.

 

All help appreciated.

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Message 9 of 21

baterluke
Participant
Participant

Hi 

Thanks for reply  - So can I easily import the fonts from other pcs , I guess its just a case of replacing my font files with my colleagues, although my CAD2011 shows the attribute text properly so I wonder if I could use the 2011 fonts as it would be easier to obtain rather than dragging my very busy colleague away from what he is doing. I have attached a part of the dwg which shows the problem block (red circle with 2 lines of text )

 

 

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Message 10 of 21

Alfred.NESWADBA
Consultant
Consultant

Hi,

 

>> but on my CAD 2015 the text is too long

The attributes are set to use textstyle "ARIAL_NARROW" and this textstyle points to a font "Arial Narrow" ... do you have the font installed? (Try to use that font in MS-Word)

 

Other question: when you open the drawing you should get a warning (if you hopefully have not disabled it) that SHX's are missing (at least for me they are missing), don't you get that message?

 

- alfred -

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alfred NESWADBA
ISH-Solutions GmbH / Ingenieur Studio HOLLAUS
www.ish-solutions.at ... blog.ish-solutions.at ... LinkedIn ... CDay 2026
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(not an Autodesk consultant)
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Message 11 of 21

baterluke
Participant
Participant

Thanks Alfred

 

I cant find arial narrow in word - seems like that might be the problem, yes I often get the missing shx files message when opening drawings, I usually click the option to ignore - 

 

I am looking online now as to how to get all the usual text fonts.

 

 

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Message 12 of 21

RobDraw
Mentor
Mentor

Did you also ignore part of post #5 about the font being missing?


Rob

Drafting is a breeze and Revit doesn't always work the way you think it should.
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Message 13 of 21

baterluke
Participant
Participant

Yeah sorry Rob, I replied to the font idea but on someone elses thread who suggested this, I thought my replies would be visible to all, it seems I didnt have the right font - arial narrow installed on my machine, I have since obtained ms office which contains arial narrow, although I have yet to put this into the cad fonts folder, busy as \i am today.

 

Thanks for responses. 

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Message 14 of 21

Alfred.NESWADBA
Consultant
Consultant

Hi,

 

>> although I have yet to put this into the cad fonts folder

NO, don't do that!!!

TTF Fonts have to be installed in the Windows fonts folder and nowhere else! AutoCAD finds them there.

The AutoCAD fonts folder should only contain SHX files.

 

- alfred -

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alfred NESWADBA
ISH-Solutions GmbH / Ingenieur Studio HOLLAUS
www.ish-solutions.at ... blog.ish-solutions.at ... LinkedIn ... CDay 2026
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(not an Autodesk consultant)
Message 15 of 21

baterluke
Participant
Participant

OK Alfred got that luckily, I have installed the new ms office which has arial narrow, I opened the same dwg and the text size problem is still there, I'll try erasing the whole dwg and re downloading it under a different file name. 

 

Many Thanks

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Message 16 of 21

Alfred.NESWADBA
Consultant
Consultant

Hi,

 

>> I have installed the new ms office which has arial narrow, I opened the same dwg and the text size problem is still there

Please show a screenshot of one of that block/attribute objects as it appear in your system and a screenshot as it appears on another system ... upload these two screenshots here.

 

When you open the drawing and start command _STYLE, do you have styles defined where fonts are missing?

 

- alfred -

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alfred NESWADBA
ISH-Solutions GmbH / Ingenieur Studio HOLLAUS
www.ish-solutions.at ... blog.ish-solutions.at ... LinkedIn ... CDay 2026
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(not an Autodesk consultant)
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Message 17 of 21

baterluke
Participant
Participant

Hi 

Typing _STYLES opened the plot styles folder, several files are in there none of which seem to relate to fonts, but Happily the problem has gone and the text in the attribute block is normal, all good! I think restarting my computer loaded the ariall narrow font from ms office into CAD - no problems now - thank you very much.

 

Luke

 

 

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Message 18 of 21

baterluke
Participant
Participant

After re-starting my computer the problem was gone - Autocad found Arial narrow and the attribute block looked correct.

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Message 19 of 21

Alfred.NESWADBA
Consultant
Consultant

Hi,

 

>> Typing _STYLES opened the plot styles folder

That's why I wrote command _STYLE (without s at the end)

When you type in _STYLES then AutoCAD uses the spellchecker and corrects it to _STYLESMANAGER (look to the command-line while typing)

 

- alfred -

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alfred NESWADBA
ISH-Solutions GmbH / Ingenieur Studio HOLLAUS
www.ish-solutions.at ... blog.ish-solutions.at ... LinkedIn ... CDay 2026
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(not an Autodesk consultant)
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Message 20 of 21

Alfred.NESWADBA
Consultant
Consultant

Hi,

 

>> After re-starting my computer the problem was gone

Yep, one of the rules when something does not work ... 😉

Thx for letting us know that all is working now as it is expected.

 

- alfred -

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alfred NESWADBA
ISH-Solutions GmbH / Ingenieur Studio HOLLAUS
www.ish-solutions.at ... blog.ish-solutions.at ... LinkedIn ... CDay 2026
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(not an Autodesk consultant)