Arial font not available in label style text component editor

[mikespelts]

My company is switching to Arial Baltic and Arial Narrow as the fonts to be used use for everything including Civil 3D. I am editing a label style for compliance with the new standard and it has another font embedded in the text component editor. I cannot find a way to remove the override, and there is no choice in this font list for arial. How do I remove this non-standard font without rebuilding the style or at least that component?

Also, I don't care for the look of True Type fonts on a CAD screen but I seem to be the only one. Does anyone know of any reasons (besides the above) why arial is a poor choice for CAD?

thanks.

[jeff_rivers]

I can't help you with the label style text editor problem, and I also have an answer you won't want to hear with respect to using TrueType fonts.

We are switching away from ROMANS and towards using TrueType fonts because objectively we believe they look nicer, and also they have the benefit that when published to PDF the text is searchable.  Non-TT fonts such as ROMANS are not searchable.  

As we move publishing our plans electronically instead of on paper, that's a very valuable benefit. 

[rkmcswain]

Yeah, pros and cons to this

SHX are fast to generate, and you easily snap to the INS of them.

TTF typically look better on printed output (inc. PDF).

SHX can be made to print an almost infinite number of widths (or thickness) of the stroke, simply by varying the plot style.

TTF stroke width is defined in the font. Larger fonts are "thicker", etc. Some TTF fonts include a sister "Narrow" fonts, and there is the typical "Bold" setting, but sometimes you want a really bold L80 size font, or maybe a really light+thin L175 text - you can't do that with TTF, at least not without using a totally different font/style.

[cwr-pae]

C3D labeling styles have 2 ways to change fonts, same as mtext, by external text style and by font internally. One is by the CAD Text style, if you don't create an arial text style Arial wont be available in the general tab under text style. On the layout tab, contents button you have a format tab with a font selection there, if the font doesn't show up here it isn't installed on your machine. It the Arial isn't listed under the fonts when creating a text style, again, it isn't installed.

An additional problem with TTF in place of shx. Using standard text style in line type definitions Arial looks ugly, Simplex looks right.

[mikespelts]

Thanks for the good info on TTF vs SHX everyone. I will get used to it. Except I will try to hold out and keep romans for linetypes with text in them.

Regarding my text component editor problem, I included some screen shots below showing that, yes arial is installed on my system as evidenced in the Mtext editor, yet it still does not appear in the text component editor format tab font pull down.

[cwr-pae]

Now that is buggy. Have you tried reinstalling arial.ttf to windows? And restart ACAD/C3d afterwards.

[rl_jackson]

I've been using ttf in lines and text since Autodesk moved to windows back around 2000, when land desktop was released. Back then I used a script to get the drawing scale from LDD. It was the best move I ever made, especially when it came to providing documents for recording (plats, easements etc).

[mikespelts]

No I haven't yet. Anything like that requires IT involvement at our company so its a hassle.

So other people have Arial fonts in their component editor?

I am using Windows 10 by the way.

[mikespelts]

Two years after this post, I still use Arial for everything CAD all the time, yet it is still is not a choice in the text component editor. I am using a new machine, and using a newer version of Civil 3D (2018) than when I first reported this issue.

How is it that no one else is complaining about this? I guess I am too picky.

[rkmcswain]

I'm not sure what to tell you. I've been using AutoCAD since way before TTF were added, and Civil 3D since it was introduced, and I've never seen Arial font not available like that.

Here is my screenshot from Civil 3D 2020.

Is Arial available when you are creating a regular old AutoCAD Text Style?

I think nobody else is complaining because you're the only one having the issue.

[mikespelts]

Yes arial is available everywhere else. The problem is that my label styles are already using arial, but if it another font enters into a label somehow, I have difficulty forcing it back to arial because its not available in the pulldown in the text component editor.

So I'm the only one having this problem. And everyone else I've had check at my company. Maybe its something our IT folks are doing at install.

Thanks for your response. 

[MbMinx]

This sounds similar to a problem I'm having.

My labels are using an SHX font that is available everywhere else, but not in the label text format, just like the problem you see. I'll be interested to see what the solution may be.