Topic: Brain Dead Drawing only?

[CADaver]

OK, let me give an example.
I have one client who sent us a template to work from.  It had the text issue and the ctb issue we were talking about.  The ctb we can live with, the drawings just plot a bit odd because we don't have his lineweights.  BUT, as we had no sample drawings, just the lone template, and his standard text style.. well wasn't, we did not know it was not working correctly.  The font he actually used was wider then our fontalt.   So all our text in revision clouds and such bled over if you had the right text font.  They never mention that the text is not right when checking the drawings we sent.

One or two jobs go by with them getting dwf files and thats fine.  Next job comes up and they are making the countertops in house so they want cad files instead.  Well when they plot the drawings, since they HAVE the font, it comes out all messed up. 

Is it a strange set of circumstances, yes very. Is it the only time things like that have happened, nope, not at all. 

That's a FONTALT issue and an issue with not receive a custom font and has nothing at all to do with re-fonting the style Standard.  Had he created another style with the wacky font, you'd have the very same issue.

[Josh Nieman]

OK, let me give an example.
I have one client who sent us a template to work from.  It had the text issue and the ctb issue we were talking about.  The ctb we can live with, the drawings just plot a bit odd because we don't have his lineweights.  BUT, as we had no sample drawings, just the lone template, and his standard text style.. well wasn't, we did not know it was not working correctly.  The font he actually used was wider then our fontalt.   So all our text in revision clouds and such bled over if you had the right text font.  They never mention that the text is not right when checking the drawings we sent.

One or two jobs go by with them getting dwf files and thats fine.  Next job comes up and they are making the countertops in house so they want cad files instead.  Well when they plot the drawings, since they HAVE the font, it comes out all messed up. 

Is it a strange set of circumstances, yes very. Is it the only time things like that have happened, nope, not at all. 

That's a FONTALT issue and an issue with not receive a custom font and has nothing at all to do with re-fonting the style Standard.  Had he created another style with the wacky font, you'd have the very same issue.

Ok this fish came back to bite.

The main issue I have with using the name "Standard" is that whenever anyone pastes in tables, blocks, dimensions, or anything that reads from a style... and the style names overlap but have different definitions from the source to the destination... the stuff gets screwed up.  That's all there is to it.

If I use Standard, and paste my stuff into a clients template, and they use Standard, but defined it their way... all my stuff will take on their attributes and can lead to conflicts, alignment issues, and a bunch of other crap that can be a real hassle, INCLUDING times when we HAVE all their funky wacky architect fonts.

[Shinyhead]

Your right, doesn't make it any less annoying.  It also will tend to mask the issue if Standard, be it text style, dimstyle, whatever is modified.  Yeah, we should catch everything inconsistant in a clients drawings to see what they forgot to send us, but sometimes its a bit hard to pick up on, especially when the client does not have a written standard, no sample drawings, and uses very... well lets just say creative ways to get things done.  Creativity is fine, but please document it.

[CADaver]

If I use Standard, and paste my stuff into a clients template, and they use Standard, but defined it their way... all my stuff will take on their attributes and can lead to conflicts, alignment issues, and a bunch of other crap that can be a real hassle, INCLUDING times when we HAVE all their funky wacky architect fonts.

Then THAT is an arguement NOT to use style Standard, and a point with which I might agree.  It has nothing at all to do with re-fonting it.

[Shinyhead]

OK, let me give an example.
I have one client who sent us a template to work from.  It had the text issue and the ctb issue we were talking about.  The ctb we can live with, the drawings just plot a bit odd because we don't have his lineweights.  BUT, as we had no sample drawings, just the lone template, and his standard text style.. well wasn't, we did not know it was not working correctly.  The font he actually used was wider then our fontalt.   So all our text in revision clouds and such bled over if you had the right text font.  They never mention that the text is not right when checking the drawings we sent.

One or two jobs go by with them getting dwf files and thats fine.  Next job comes up and they are making the countertops in house so they want cad files instead.  Well when they plot the drawings, since they HAVE the font, it comes out all messed up. 

Is it a strange set of circumstances, yes very. Is it the only time things like that have happened, nope, not at all. 

That's a FONTALT issue and an issue with not receive a custom font and has nothing at all to do with re-fonting the style Standard.  Had he created another style with the wacky font, you'd have the very same issue.

Ok this fish came back to bite.

The main issue I have with using the name "Standard" is that whenever anyone pastes in tables, blocks, dimensions, or anything that reads from a style... and the style names overlap but have different definitions from the source to the destination... the stuff gets screwed up.  That's all there is to it.

If I use Standard, and paste my stuff into a clients template, and they use Standard, but defined it their way... all my stuff will take on their attributes and can lead to conflicts, alignment issues, and a bunch of other crap that can be a real hassle, INCLUDING times when we HAVE all their funky wacky architect fonts.

Thats another issue I didn't even begin to get into.  You tack that on to all the other things and you can get some amazingly messed up drawings, and often no idea they are wrong until the client is yelling at you.

[CADaver]

It also will tend to mask the issue if Standard, be it text style, dimstyle, whatever is modified. 

What would?  A quote back would help, I have a couple of lines going here.

Yeah, we should catch everything inconsistant in a clients drawings to see what they forgot to send us,

Yes you should.

but sometimes its a bit hard to pick up on, especially when the client does not have a written standard, no sample drawings, and uses very... well lets just say creative ways to get things done.  Creativity is fine, but please document it.

Require eTransmit-ed files.

[CADaver]

The main issue I have with using the name "Standard" is that whenever anyone pastes in tables, blocks, dimensions, or anything that reads from a style... and the style names overlap but have different definitions from the source to the destination... the stuff gets screwed up.  That's all there is to it.

If I use Standard, and paste my stuff into a clients template, and they use Standard, but defined it their way... all my stuff will take on their attributes and can lead to conflicts, alignment issues, and a bunch of other crap that can be a real hassle, INCLUDING times when we HAVE all their funky wacky architect fonts.

Your issue is with USING style stanadard not re-fonting it.  Then don't use it.

[Shinyhead]

When they pay the bills, it is often a challenge to "require" that.  Now, if they didn't then we may not eat the cost of fixing it, but thats another story.

[Josh Nieman]

The main issue I have with using the name "Standard" is that whenever anyone pastes in tables, blocks, dimensions, or anything that reads from a style... and the style names overlap but have different definitions from the source to the destination... the stuff gets screwed up.  That's all there is to it.

If I use Standard, and paste my stuff into a clients template, and they use Standard, but defined it their way... all my stuff will take on their attributes and can lead to conflicts, alignment issues, and a bunch of other crap that can be a real hassle, INCLUDING times when we HAVE all their funky wacky architect fonts.

Your issue is with USING style stanadard not re-fonting it.  Then don't use it.

Well I made the assumption that people refont Standard as an alternative from creating a new one.  I figured they were the polar choices for the same question/decision.

[sinc]

Several years back, we had a similar issue, where our title block did not look right in one drawing.  It took a while to figure out why.

This one had me confused for a bit.  Eventually, I tracked it down to the fact that our tech had not started a new drawing from a template, and then used Map or some such technique for pulling in the linework from the "others", the way he was taught.  Instead, he took a drawing sent to us by "others", and started turning that drawing into his final product.

The problem cropped up when he inserted our title block.  At the time this happened, we used a font called TITLE in our title block.  It just so happens that the "others" also used a font called TITLE.  When our tech inserted our title block into the drawing that was started by the "others", it used the "other's" version of the TITLE font.

After this little runaround, that particular tech finally realized why I tell them to always start a new drawing from our template.  But I also went into our template and renamed all our fonts, so they now all include our company initials, and none of them use common names like TITLE anymore.  This was similar to the problems that crop up from using fonts and styles named STANDARD, but was a bit more insidious...

[CADaver]

When they pay the bills, it is often a challenge to "require" that.  Now, if they didn't then we may not eat the cost of fixing it, but thats another story.

Why is it a challenge to to get the files you need to execute the work??  If you don't ask for all the right data, you need to eat the cost for fixing it.  As soon as you get a template or a spec that says use style "whatever", the very next question should be "What's the font for that style?"  Depending on FONTALT to cover it is a "cad monkey" error.

[CADaver]

Your issue is with USING style standard not re-fonting it.  Then don't use it.

Well I made the assumption that people refont Standard as an alternative from creating a new one. 

Others may do just that, however if YOU have an issue with such, don't use that style.  Seems like a choice even a "cad monkey" could make without a lot of sweat, doesn't it?

I figured they were the polar choices for the same question/decision.

Not at all.  We have no issue using style Standard re-fonted to Romans for how we use it.  No matter how anyone else fiddles with it, it will always be Romans for us.  But then again we don't use custom fonts at all, and neither do our contractors.

[Maverick®]

<stick-poking smiley>

[CADaver]

<stick-poking smiley>

<stick-STIRRING smiley>

[Shinyhead]

When they pay the bills, it is often a challenge to "require" that.  Now, if they didn't then we may not eat the cost of fixing it, but thats another story.

Why is it a challenge to to get the files you need to execute the work??  If you don't ask for all the right data, you need to eat the cost for fixing it.  As soon as you get a template or a spec that says use style "whatever", the very next question should be "What's the font for that style?"  Depending on FONTALT to cover it is a "cad monkey" error.

You assume we don't ask? 

Remember, in our case, most of the people are outsourcing not just because they are busy, but also they sometimes do not have the knowledge to make their in-house engineering dept work to any kind of a standard and they work very inefficiantly. If they had things well in hand they probably wouldn't need us to do work for them (if they have drafters on staff anyway, a few don't have cad at all).  Most don't know what a standard is (at least until they have worked with us for a while).  We VERY frequently end up doing more then just outsourcing, we end up helping the client set up a cad standard for themselves and help them document them so those issues don't crop up again.  What is scary is most of them have never been asked the standards related questions we ask and they outsource all the time.  It is not unusual at all for them to blow of the requests for the files/fonts/standards and they tell us to proceed without them.  Well, when they do that we do NOT eat the cost to fix drawings.  It is normal that within a couple of jobs we are then asked to help them set up and document a standard for them.  I have trained more then one cad manager from one of our clients engineering departments after they have worked with us for a few years and we show them the time and money they are spending due to not having things documented or standardized.

One thing I tell them is to leave anything that comes with Autocad as "standard", like dimstyle and textstyle alone and create one that is uniquely named.  Yeah, you *CAN* modify them to no detriment, but it does increase the chance of something going wrong, so it makes sense not to do it and avoid the issue alltogether.