Text does not remain centered when using Mark command

[gordow]

When I create centered text in a sketch and center the text on a feature, then use the Mark command to create single-stroke geometry for engraving, the text does not remain centered.  In the attached screen grab "Mark command letter shift", the red letters are the centered text of the sketch, the black letters are the result of the Mark command.  It appears the the Mark command begins at the left edge of the line of text and just letters to the right, no center justifying is done.  I tried adjusting the stretch of the text the sketch text, but the resulting text from the Mark command is also adjusted.  The font used for the text in the sketch and for the mark command are the same, in this case romans.  In the screen grab "Typical connector panel", an example from a past project using the Emboss command, the goal is to center the lettering under the connectors.  The shift from the Mark command makes the lettering off. 

Is there a fix here?  Thanks.

Gordow

Inventor 2023.3.1

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! It does not look right to me. It is possible the particular font has to be converted as such. Please share the file here. I would like to understand the behavior better.

Many thanks!

[gordow]

Here is the test file I am using to figure this out...

Thank you for having a closer look.

Gordow

[johnsonshiue · Accepted solution]

Hi! Many thanks for sharing the file! Indeed, I am seeing the same behavior. The issue here is that Inventor has to convert the True Type font "RomanS" to SHX font "romans." Unfortunately, such conversion leads to different character spacing. The only way to make them close is to use "Outline" option (Manage -> Styles Editors -> Mark -> Text). But I believe the "Stroke" option is preferred.

Thanks again!

[gordow]

@johnsonshiue, thank you for looking into this.  Is there a chance this issue (I would call it a bug) will be fixed?  Should I submit it to the Inventor Ideas forum?   It appears Inventor only uses the .ttf fonts in C:\Windows\fonts and SHX fonts cannot be put in this folder.  There are SHX fonts in C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Inventor 2023\Compatibility\Fonts on my machine and I presume this is where the Mark command gets the fonts it uses. 

I have experimented and found that if the sketch text is monotxt (.ttf) and the Mark text is monotxt (SHX), they come out close, but I call that a possible workaround in a pinch. 

Thanks again.

gordow

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Gordow,

Please feel free to submit it as an idea. However, based on my limited understanding of how text conversion works, I don't see an easy solution. The issue here is that the two fonts are actually different. To convert one to another with high fidelity requires character-specific conversion, which is almost impossible.

Many thanks!

[Curtis_W · Accepted solution]

For anyone in the future that is seeing this, I just ran into this issue and found that the font called "isocp" seems to work well and stay centered.