Make a dimension style with no foot or inch marks?

[Anonymous]

Hi folks, after a few weeks of searching and google not returning a single answer that's even similar, I've decided to ask the question here. I work for a sprinkler company, and we use a LISP overlay that mimics our industry standard from old drawings showing stacked text like in the screen capture I have attached. I can't seem to find a way to make a dimension style that will suppress the (') foot and (") mark while still being in Imperial feet and inches. Any help would be greatly appreciated. As a usage note, my QA department requires my drawings all look like this, but it's a pain to make every drawing using the lisp overlay, as it creates a lot of extra steps for making the drawings stylistically correct. I can save almost an hour of drafting per drawing by just using standard AutoCAD commands, and make fewer QA remarks, but doing this basically makes my dimensions disassociated. So, basically, if I have to go back and edit the drawing, I have to redimension everything on top of making it look the "right way". This is more about time saving then anything. Thanks in advance!

[pendean]

Not an option.

[Kent1Cooper]

The only way I think that could be done would be with a routine that would take a Dimension and create override text content  in the form you're after.  That would have the same drawback that if you Stretch something, the text content would not  update, and you'd need to re-run the routine on all affected Dimensions.  But it could at least make that happen very much faster than overriding manually.  I picture two routines -- one to include, in one command, drawing  a Dimension and  immediately changing its content, and one to just change the content of selected Dimensions for updating.

But come to think of it, here's another cockamamie suggestion:  Make a Text Style  in which the foot and inch marks are defined to draw nothing, and assign that to a Dimension Style dedicated to only this kind of thing.  I don't think that would be difficult to do, if it sounds like it would serve your purpose.

[Michiel.Valcke]

I haven't tried it out (and I have never worked in imperial) but from the top of my head, can't you turn your dimensions into fields refering to the object (the dimension) >>> Measurement and then remove the annotation marks in the 'Additional Format' option.

[Anonymous]

While I haven't tried that, and to be honest I'm not sure how I'd proceed doing that.

[Anonymous]

I am interested in trying the other idea of making the new text style and seeing if that will work. I will also have to try to figure out how to make a text style that represents those characters as null though. It does seem though, if it turns out that nothing simple works, I may just have to take the extra time to work with our LISP overlay, since that program does this already. It's just time consuming especially once a revision is required.

[Kent1Cooper · Accepted solution]

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@Kent1Cooper wrote:

.... 

But come to think of it, here's another cockamamie suggestion:  Make a Text Style  in which the foot and inch marks are defined to draw nothing, and assign that to a Dimension Style dedicated to only this kind of thing.  I don't think that would be difficult to do, if it sounds like it would serve your purpose.

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Give this a shot.  [I haven't actually tested it, since I need to make arrangements with the System Administrator to be permitted to put it into the Fonts folder, but I hope it works.]  You can easily find the lines I changed in the .shp file -- they have ;; EFFECTIVELY DRAW NOTHING comments at their first lines, and ;; original at the beginning of what I replaced.  So if it positions things oddly, there's something amiss in those lines.

EDIT:  Come to think of it, even if you were to use such a font vertically [I preserved that aspect since the rest of TXT is written to allow for it], you wouldn't want it to move down, any more than you want it to move to the right when used horizontally.  I suspect both those code lines could be simplified [I haven't done so in the attached files]:

2,010,018,0

[that just moves a unit arbitrarily to the right, and back to the left, with the pen up] and the number-of-specifiers numbers changed from 8 to 4 in each header.  Maybe they could even be reduced to simply ending without doing anything at all, thus:

0

with the number-of-specifiers numbers changed to 1 in each header, but that's kind of scary to contemplate....

Later when I'm where I have the appropriate permissions without going to anyone else, I'll fiddle some more with it, unless you find it works as is.

[dbroad]

Most consistent and reliable approach would be to make a copy of the txt.shp font file and to rebuilt the " and ' characters to be just 1/4 of a space. Then compile it and use that font for your dimensions. Skip lisp files and dimension overrides.

[Anonymous]

THIS!!! This right here. Judging by the look of it, it's exactly what I was hoping for and an option that works!!! That it can't be an option (I'm barely a drafter, let alone a coder!) seems a little absurd, since you can suppress and change nearly every other aspect of the dimension string. As a work around though, this is the best option. I'm not sure how many others it will help, but it helps me tremendously and for that, I THANK YOU!!!

[Kent1Cooper]

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@Anonymous wrote:

THIS!!! This right here. Judging by the look of it, it's exactly what I was hoping for and an option that works!!! .... I'm not sure how many others it will help, but it helps me tremendously and for that, I THANK YOU!!!

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Cool!  You're welcome -- it's always a relief to find that something untested actually worked!  And it was kind of fun to dig back into font definition structure, which I hadn't played with in quite a while [I actually created an entire font once, but that was many years ago].

[Anonymous]

Seriously though, great work. I'm able to use it so far in all my current dimension configurations, and it seems to integrate seamlessly. I'll check back after my next QA review and let you know if it passes all the tests, but right now this is stylistically correct timesaver I'm looking for!

[Kent1Cooper]

Of course, it can be done this way with .SHX fonts such as TXT, which is the one I adapted because of your original image.  I don't know of a way to do the same with .TTF fonts, but someone who knows how they're defined might be able to do something.

[Kent1Cooper]

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@Kent1Cooper wrote:
....
.  I suspect both those code lines could be simplified ....  Maybe they could even be reduced to simply ending without doing anything at all, thus:
0
with the number-of-specifiers numbers changed to 1 in each header, but that's kind of scary to contemplate....
Later ... I'll fiddle some more with it....

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Which I have now done, and I find it does  work to just put a 0 as the entire character definition.  Attached is FontsNoQuotes.zip, containing versions of the same alteration [both .SHP and .SHX files] based on the TXT, SIMPLEX, ROMANS and ROMAND fonts.

[Anonymous]

Is there a way to just simply remove the inch quotation mark, and leave the foot comma?

[Kent1Cooper]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Is there a way to just simply remove the inch quotation mark, and leave the foot comma?

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Yes -- just revert the definition of the foot mark to its original in each .SHP file in the .ZIP folder.  Here's the one from the TxtNoQuotes.SHP file -- change this much:

*00027,1,kapos ;; EFFECTIVELY DRAW NOTHING to eliminate foot marks in Dimensions
;; original 2,14,3,2,14,8,(-1,-12),14,4,2,044,1,023,2,06C,020,14,3,2,14,8,(-5,2),14,4,2,0
0

back to the original, by removing the commentary and the commenting-out of the original definition line, and eliminating the 0 that made it do nothing, and in each case count up the entries [how many numbers there are separated by the commas in the definition line, ignoring parentheses and minus signs] to change the 1 accordingly:

*00027,28,kapos
2,14,3,2,14,8,(-1,-12),14,4,2,044,1,023,2,06C,020,14,3,2,14,8,(-5,2),14,4,2,0

[The *00027 and kapos parts will be the same in all .SHP files, defining the apostrophe character.  That change of number will be to a different number in each font.]

I would suggest using different file names just to avoid confusion, such as TxtNoInch.SHP.  Then use the COMPILE command on each, to make a .SHX file from it that you can use in Text and Dimension Style definitions.

Bear in mind, as with the earlier set, that you should use these fonts only  for Dimensions, and perhaps rarely Text or Mtext involving feet-and-inches content coming from an AutoLisp (rtos) function, in which you want no inch marks shown.  In any other usage, they will similarly show nothing at all where any double-quote character is called for.  [I guess you could  use them for other things if you know you will never  want them to include a double-quote character.]

[Anonymous]

I tried that, but messed it up.

I really don't understand what to add or remove

[Kent1Cooper]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I tried that, but messed it up. ....

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Try these [minimally  tested] in the attached FontsNoInch.zip.  You really need only the .SHX files, but I include the .SHP files in case you want to investigate.  Same limitation as before -- I don't know of a way to do this to .TTF  fonts.

Extract and put the one(s) you want into the Fonts folder under your version of AutoCAD, something like:
  C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2019\Fonts

You will need to re-start AutoCAD after you put them there, for it to be able to "find" them.

[Anonymous]

This is EXACTLY what I've been looking for!

Thanks so much.

[Anonymous]

If we want the Foot and Inch mark left on, but the hyphen between the Inch and Fraction, how do we do that? Space between the Foot and Inches and Hyphen between inch and fraction.

NO:  9'-2 1/2"

Yes:  9' 2-1/2"

[damielcruz150]

i had make my new font with no inch mark, but is in ARIAL font i do i change the font style to MONOTEXT?