Text style changes when block is inserted

[Anonymous]

I did some searching but nothing quite fit the same situation. I have some blocks that I updated and created from scratch. There are both regular text and attributes in them. When I insert the blocks into a file...new, old, doesn't matter...the company text style is changed. From SA-Standard set to Century Gothic in my case to Standard set to txt. Both the file where the blocks are kept and the working files, even the company template all have the correct text style setup properly...SA-Standard set to Century Gothic. So it's not like it can't find the style and is substituting it in place.

What's weird it that the file the blocks are in was created [save as] from an old file. The only difference in the blocks is the text style, the company did some updating to is standards. These old blocks work fine, the text style they are created with follow into the drawing. The only difference...that I know of... is the text style name and font setting. The old text style is annotative the new one is not.

On top of that we have been using the new text style for months now. If an older block with the old text style was used it brought the old text style with it. Now if I grab a new block with the new text style, it replaces it with the default Standard text in all files new and old. If I copy the block into the drawing via copy/paste from file to file, no problems. Pull from the Design Center, problems.

What am I missing?

[qnologi]

Any chance you could provide a screenshot of how these "blocks" look after all of what you stated?

Also, it might be helpful if you'd include a .dwg of which this is taking place.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, probably should not have posted a new topic before going on vacation. The screenshot shows how they look in the file they were created in on the right. On the left is how they look when pulled into a new company template file from the design center. I have attached 2 dwg files, Attributes is the one where they were created, Drawing1 is a new company template.

Thanks for any help.

[pendean]

The STYLE settings in both files must match: the DWG you are in will override the block you insert always.

[Anonymous]

I believe they are...

[pendean]

Not according to your Drawing1 file's blocks...

[Anonymous]

Can this be set as a default in the template file? We only had this start happening after some changes to our standards and templates. 

Just tried to change the style from Standard to ours in the attribute editor window, the block is still not displaying right. Did a regenall, even closed and reopened the file. Lists our text style but still displaying Standard. INSERT a new block, lists Standard as default. 

[dbroad]

Template files only affect new drawings, not existing ones.  If your company has made the decision to switch from standard styles to SA-Standard styles, and if your legacy office content is expected to conform to the new style, you will need to open each drawing and update the styles.  Any blocks stored in block library files will need to be individually block edited and changes made.  Any attributes must be modified by using attsync or battman..

Automation is possible via LISP and .NET to make these changes to libraries of drawings.  File dates will change though and updated files may not be openable in older versions of AutoCAD.

HIre someone to make the changes who understands how to automate a transition to your new policies. Establish and plan the process.  Otherwise these haphazard results will be typical.

[pendean]

BEDIT command is where you change your attributes and mtext settings in those Dynamic Blocks: works fine, see the one I edited

[Anonymous]

The thing is we have never used the Standard text style. We've always had our own, either the style name or font have changed over the years. This is the first time this has happened. 

Ok just tried something. I opened our new template threw together a block with text and an attribute using our new style. Saved it to our block library/design center. Opened another new template and pulled the block into the file and it still changed it to the Standard style. I would think this would rule out all old items that may be causing a problem. New template using new style making new block, inserted new block into new template = changed style. If I were to a copy/paste directly from one file to another it works and keeps the new style. 

[pendean]

I opened your Attributes DWG file.

I started a blank file.

I did a copy/paste of the contents of your attributes files into the blank file.

No font changes took place. See file attached.

[dbroad]

@Anonymous Have you accounted for possible customizations or drawing standards or font substitutions? Cutting and pasting should not change the style of the attributes.  The process is not just changing the font for a particular style but the style of an attribute object and perhaps the attribute definition.  Ordinary AutoCAD doesn't do that.

[Anonymous]

@dboard I thought that throwing together a new block using all new files/styles would to just that, if it's all new there are no substitutions or changes. As I've said, we have changed our text style 2-3 times over the years and there have been no problems.

Actually I just tried something. I pulled the new block into a new file and the style changed, I pulled an old version of the block into the new file and the style did NOT change. The same happened then using an old file. I guess this would mean that the issue may be with the block itself. Or actually blocks, there are a few that we've redone and are doing this.

I'll have to spend some time looking over the old/new blocks and templates to see what the differences are. I've attached new and old files with both new and old blocks.

[dbroad]

Try the same blocks in clean AutoCAD only drawings.  Your drawings are affected by the presence of what are missing applications at my end.  Given the level of complexity of each of these applications, project standards could be affecting how blocks behave. Each of those drawings has different applications.  Perhaps you should visit a newsgroup that supports those applications.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the idea dboard. I opened up the stock acad.dwt and pulled in both the new and old blocks got the same results. Looking into things further I saw that the old block had the old text style name 'Siefert_Annotation' and that was brought into the dwg with the block so it displayed properly. The new block has the new text style called 'SA-Standard' and it did not display properly. The new text style didn't follow the block. So I manually brought it into file, still didn't work. Check the command line and it said "Textstyle(s) added. Duplicate definitions will be ignored"

At first this didn't make sense, it's a stock ACAD template with none of our styles in it, how can there be a duplicate. I tried renaming our new text style form 'SA-Standard' to 'BOB', opened a new stock template and it worked. The new block with the correct text was displaying properly. 'BOB' was in the file and everything was good. 

So, it appears that even though our text style is called 'SA-Standard' ACAD thinks for some reason it is the same as 'Standard' and won't load it. This is really odd because our dimension, table, and multileader styles are all named the same (SA-Standard) and they have had no problems being inserted. Obviously a quick fix is for us to just change the name of our styles but I'm wondering if this is a bug in ACAD.

Thanks everyone for your help, at least I was able to figure out why it was happening.

[Anonymous]

Well I guess it wasn't the problem as it's still happening. We had a couple of guys trying and testing things but they weren't communicating and doing it here and there. I'm thinking that weren't being effective so I ran my own tests and documented everything. Basically dragging a new block into any template from the design center, will not display properly; weather the text style is imported or not varies. Using the old blocks works, every time.

The company did a major switch to annotating everything in model space with annotative text/dims to paper space. We are getting into more 3D work and paper space annotation is almost required to make life easy. The company template and annotation blocks were revised to accommodate this change. Since that change we stared having problems. 

At this point we don't know if it's the new block, new template, new text style or something else. I have attached the files I used for testing as well as my test notes.

[Anonymous]

Since I could only attach 3 files per post here are the rest of the files.

[pendean]

ZIP many files into one and avoid the hassle of multi-files method.

What are OLD, CURRENT and NEW supposed to signify? And is there a 'new" block/attribute file?

STYLE command in all the DWG/DWT file you posted: no two style names and font options really match except between SA(current) and symbols/atributes, and the former has an extra one too. What are your STYLE standards exactly?

[Anonymous]

OLD depending on the context is referring to either our old company template, old blocks or text styles. These were when we were annotating our drawings in model space using annotative text and dims. CURRENT is our new template that we are now using, NEW is referring to our new blocks and text styles. 

Old files/blocks= 1 Siefert Assoc.Eng.[old].dwt, Attributes[old].dwg

New files/blocks= SA_09.07.16[current].dwt, Symbols and Attributes[new].dwg

SA-Text (Century Gothic) and SA-Draft.Stamp (Arial Black) are our new text styles. Siefert and Siefert_Annotation (Century Gothic) were the primary old ones, all others are also old and no longer used.

Interesting thing one of our guys came across, if you drag in the entire file that the block is in from the design center into the file you are working in, then INSERT the block you need it displays like it should. I think we narrowed it down to that the new SA-Text text style is not following the block when dragged from the design center. In one of the tests I ran I tried to bring in just the new text style into a stock ACAD template and it won't load. Command line read "Textstyle(s) added. Duplicate definitions will be ignored" However even if the text style is already in the file the STANDARD text style is used. The drag the whole file workaround is ok for now, there aren't that many blocks in the file and most of them are very commonly used. Really want to get this fixed though, I'm sure this will deter future blocks from being made/updated.

Oh, not sure if it makes a difference, we are running ACAD & ACADLT 2016 with SP1. It happens for both. 

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Anyone? Got a lot of people stumped over here.