Author Topic: Basic font for ALL border text  (Read 24336 times)

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MP

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Re: Basic font for ALL border text
« Reply #15 on: October 24, 2007, 04:32:13 PM »
On the surface custom fonts sound cool and all that but I have to tell you -- be very careful lest you author your very own distrubution hell.
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David Hall

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Re: Basic font for ALL border text
« Reply #16 on: October 24, 2007, 04:34:29 PM »
I did the 0 (zero) not the O (oh) but here they are
SHX
SHP readable by Notepad or text editor of choice
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David Hall

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Re: Basic font for ALL border text
« Reply #17 on: October 24, 2007, 04:36:39 PM »
YES MP is very correct in the distribution HELL that can arise from this.  I keep 3 or 4 copies so that if for some unknown reason something happens, I can restore it.  Now also, since Im not changing the "Letter"/"number" that is being used, just what it looks like, anyone who open a dwg without my shx file, just sees I's and 0's like normal.
Everyone has a photographic memory, Some just don't have film.
They say money can't buy happiness, but it can buy Bacon and that's a close second.
Sometimes the question is more important than the answer. (Thanks Kerry for reminding me)

David Hall

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Re: Basic font for ALL border text
« Reply #18 on: October 24, 2007, 04:40:10 PM »
If you reprogram ? or _ to be something else, you MUST give your font.shx to everybody that might ever open your file.  Otherwise when they open your file and expect to see your "custom" character, they see ? or _
Everyone has a photographic memory, Some just don't have film.
They say money can't buy happiness, but it can buy Bacon and that's a close second.
Sometimes the question is more important than the answer. (Thanks Kerry for reminding me)

mjfarrell

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Re: Basic font for ALL border text
« Reply #19 on: October 24, 2007, 04:48:14 PM »
I would suggest that you stay with native ACAD fonts, and stay away from TT fonts given the issues that they tend to present. Granted they are better now than in past versions they still can trend towards problematic.
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Josh Nieman

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Re: Basic font for ALL border text
« Reply #20 on: October 24, 2007, 04:50:48 PM »
On the surface custom fonts sound cool and all that but I have to tell you -- be very careful lest you author your very own distrubution hell.

I've seen the effects of it... I'm working on a drawing from an architect who has all his Phi symbols replaced by "?", and I think he has a symbol for PL which is replaced by a funky squiggly lower case "f"   and I have received no alert that I'm missing a shape file or font when opening it, so I think he redefined "Arial" without changing the name of it.

I've seen the disastrous effect, but I don't foresee having a problem.  For 90% of our projects, we're the top of the food chain, so it'll only be used by us, without the drawings trickling down, other than model space geometry and reading our PDFs.  Our subs are pretty smart though.  We have a custom font needed for one of our subs logo that goes on their .DWGs and there's been no problems, ever.

I'll be sure to be cautious if I end up using a custom font though.  I'm just tired of typing \u+2104 and having to create an extra MTEXT object just for an "L" to move over the "S" when I want a dimension from SL to SL.  (I don't wanna settle for SL or PL or CL as I wrote them here)

Josh Nieman

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Re: Basic font for ALL border text
« Reply #21 on: October 24, 2007, 04:53:21 PM »
YES MP is very correct in the distribution HELL that can arise from this.  I keep 3 or 4 copies so that if for some unknown reason something happens, I can restore it.  Now also, since Im not changing the "Letter"/"number" that is being used, just what it looks like, anyone who open a dwg without my shx file, just sees I's and 0's like normal.

Yea, that's a very innocent change with no repercussions, of any scale.

If you reprogram ? or _ to be something else, you MUST give your font.shx to everybody that might ever open your file.  Otherwise when they open your file and expect to see your "custom" character, they see ? or _

That's the thing.  If I were to change what characters look like, I would 100% never, ever, name it the same thing as the file I started with.  If I started with RomanS and changed some characters, I would name it after our company, probably.  That way, when someone opens our drawing, they get the little popup that tells them "oh hooo... someone didn't send me their font or shx files" and there's a flag.

LE

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Re: Basic font for ALL border text
« Reply #22 on: October 24, 2007, 05:00:43 PM »
I'm working on a multi-discipline standard for a large project and I'm trying to come up with a single style/font to use on the border. Thus far Arial seems to work OK.

Any/All comments welcome.

thanks

We use here basically SIMPLEX.SHX and in cases that we use any other, we mention to any consultant to use a the FONTALT sysvar - also read about FONTMAP sysvar

David Hall

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Re: Basic font for ALL border text
« Reply #23 on: October 24, 2007, 05:03:10 PM »
Make sure you DOUBLE check inside the file for the naming of the font, I cant remember where it is (probably line 1 or 2) there is a line that tells Autocad the font "name"
Everyone has a photographic memory, Some just don't have film.
They say money can't buy happiness, but it can buy Bacon and that's a close second.
Sometimes the question is more important than the answer. (Thanks Kerry for reminding me)

Josh Nieman

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Re: Basic font for ALL border text
« Reply #24 on: October 24, 2007, 05:18:45 PM »
On Topic (sorry for the hijack)

I think it looks nice when you have a fancied-up border, but with ours, we use Autocad geometry for our logo (lines and hatches) and TIMES NEW ROMAN for the company information under the logo.  For title block text we use SANSSERIF

These are all true type fonts, though, and if you're worried about any ramifications that mjfarrell suggests, then I guess you wouldn't want to use ours.  Obviously we're not worried about it.  I've had no problems with them.  We print out own half size prints, and send out our full size prints to someone else, as well as have had sent files to subs that have printed full size sheets for themselves and have not noticed anything different, and never heard of problems.

I find those fonts are nothing fancy but not too ... commodore-64 looking. (nttiawwt [before someone gets offended])

I've attached the border that goes on the right hand side of our drawings (rotated to keep the page stretching to a minimum)

I plotted to PDF, then saved as PNG, and reduced size to 80%, so there's some compression, pixel tesselation and all that junk, but you get the gist.

Our main reason for the title block being like it is, is it's something that can go 22x34, or 24x36, it is "ok" to be submitted to the LADOTD (with minamal alteration) if we need to use it for bridge drawings, and it looks better than what we -had- which was something out of a freshman year drafting students homework.

I filleted all the corners since we do architectural work sometimes too :P

Josh Nieman

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Re: Basic font for ALL border text
« Reply #25 on: October 24, 2007, 05:19:04 PM »
hmm... that logo looks oddly.. 'purple' to me... should be blue... oh well

Josh Nieman

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Re: Basic font for ALL border text
« Reply #26 on: October 24, 2007, 05:21:35 PM »
So my biggest suggestion... if you're going to want something "neat" for your title block... use any font you want... then trace over it with lines/hatches.  Those are universal and can't be messed up (easily).

Our logo is simply Autocad's "VINETA BT" or something like that... they started their company over the weekend and just "needed something" and later, our lawyer advised us to make it clearer that "CASE" is an acronym, to differentiate ourselves from the OTHER company named "CASE"

JohnK

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Re: Basic font for ALL border text
« Reply #27 on: October 24, 2007, 05:36:56 PM »
*gotten as far as MPs 2 cents so far*

Agree with MP, dont use TTF's if you can help it. Avoid them like the plague if you can.

*going back to reading*
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ronjonp

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Re: Basic font for ALL border text
« Reply #28 on: October 24, 2007, 05:37:59 PM »
So my biggest suggestion... if you're going to want something "neat" for your title block... use any font you want... then trace over it with lines/hatches....

I second that.....it's most annoying to have to install a proprietary font just to get a client's logo to show up correctly. I used the express tools "Explode Text" to create our logo :).

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Josh Nieman

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Re: Basic font for ALL border text
« Reply #29 on: October 24, 2007, 05:38:15 PM »
What problems have TTF's caused?  I haven't noticed, and I want to make sure I'm totally aware of anything we're doing that could cause problems... BEFORE they happen to us.