Author Topic: Text justification.  (Read 42627 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

jonesy

  • SuperMod
  • Seagull
  • Posts: 15568
Text justification.
« on: March 04, 2005, 05:16:27 AM »
Sorry if this question has been asked and asked again.

Forgive me if I am wrong, when (many many moons ago!) I used to draft on a drawing board I seem to remember all text being left justified. Except for titles etc which were then center justified. Is/was that a drawing standard? and if so where can I get a copy of the latest standard.

I personally think right justified text looks "messy", but there are users here who regularly use centre and right justified text. Before I put my foot down and stop this I need to have some reason to back up my argument.

Any information and suggestions why I am either right or wrong please (but if I am wrong, please be gentle :wink: , and I will back down gracefully)

Many thanks
Thanks for explaining the word "many" to me, it means a lot.

nivuahc

  • Guest
Text justification.
« Reply #1 on: March 04, 2005, 07:57:57 AM »
You are correct. Left justified text was the de-facto standard. That's primarily because, when drafting on the board, we didn't have a computer to work out all of the spacing for us and writing backwards was a pain.

I once worked on a project, a large piping plan, where a lot of the text had to be right justified (picky customer). My head hurt after working on that thing for just a couple of hours. It's just not natural for us to write that way and your brain has to wrap itself around the concept.

Then, computers came along and made a task like right-justified text not only easy, but the default method for leaders and what-not. Does that make it better? Not to me. I started out drafting with CaveCAD (i.e. a pencil, a board, an eraser and various triangles, etc...) so I got used to seeing everything left justified. When I look at right-justified text it just looks ugly.

That doesn't make it wrong, though. The fact that it is the default justification for things like leader text flowing to the left... and that most users don't know how to make left-justified text in that situation, I tend to just accept it and overlook it.

Of course, my users can't figure out the basics of OSNAP so maybe I've just learned to accept and expect less from them.

David Hall

  • Automatic Duh Generator
  • King Gator
  • Posts: 4075
Text justification.
« Reply #2 on: March 04, 2005, 08:16:19 AM »
I would say it depends on what types of drawings your producing.  We do connection diagrams for connecting 2+ electric panels together, and with the terminal blocks, we can put Left Justified text on the right side of the block, AND Right justified text on the Left side of the block.  Thus, we have nice straight lines of text down the center of the Terminal block.  Would a pic help?
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)

CADaver

  • Guest
Re: Text justification.
« Reply #3 on: March 04, 2005, 09:51:04 AM »
Quote from: jonesy
Sorry if this question has been asked and asked again.

Forgive me if I am wrong, when (many many moons ago!) I used to draft on a drawing board I seem to remember all text being left justified. Except for titles etc which were then center justified. Is/was that a drawing standard? and if so where can I get a copy of the latest standard.

I personally think right justified text looks "messy", but there are users here who regularly use centre and right justified text. Before I put my foot down and stop this I need to have some reason to back up my argument.

Any information and suggestions why I am either right or wrong please (but if I am wrong, please be gentle :wink: , and I will back down gracefully)

Many thanks
I'm with you.  I find right-justified text hard to read sometimes.  Our standaRd here is LEFT for everything except titles.

VerticalMojo

  • Guest
Text justification.
« Reply #4 on: March 04, 2005, 09:54:59 AM »
This topic has been moved to its appropriate Forum....

 :loneranger:

jonesy

  • SuperMod
  • Seagull
  • Posts: 15568
Text justification.
« Reply #5 on: March 04, 2005, 09:56:56 AM »
OOPs Sorry. Didn't think to post it here
Thanks for explaining the word "many" to me, it means a lot.

VerticalMojo

  • Guest
Text justification.
« Reply #6 on: March 04, 2005, 10:05:40 AM »
no prob, just doin my job ! :)

Artisan

  • Guest
Text justification.
« Reply #7 on: March 04, 2005, 12:25:05 PM »
I agree about the right text looking odd and out of place. I also came up with the pencil and board and never attempted anything that was right justified. I always had used left justified until I started this new job. The first day I drew out some details with the text left justified. The boss redlined it and told me that right justified was the "standard" that was used in architectural school. I asked him if he was trained to right justify his text when he lettered his drawings in architectural school. He said no, but it was still the correct way, his way. :roll:

M-dub

  • Guest
Text justification.
« Reply #8 on: March 04, 2005, 12:31:37 PM »
Whatever the justification, I like to use Middle-*whatever*.  Right justification has its uses, but not many...It all depends on the type of drawing you're working on, I suppose.

My 2 cents...  :wink:

MP

  • Seagull
  • Posts: 17750
  • Have thousands of dwgs to process? Contact me.
Text justification.
« Reply #9 on: March 04, 2005, 12:36:02 PM »
I encourage our folks to use middle left.

Obviously there are exceptions, like instrument tags etc. that are more logical placed as middle center, but the norm is middle left.
Engineering Technologist • CAD Automation Practitioner
Automation ▸ Design ▸ Drafting ▸ Document Control ▸ Client
cadanalyst@gmail.comhttp://cadanalyst.slack.comhttp://linkedin.com/in/cadanalyst

CADaver

  • Guest
Text justification.
« Reply #10 on: March 04, 2005, 07:00:47 PM »
Quote from: MP
I encourage our folks to use middle left.

Obviously there are exceptions, like instrument tags etc. that are more logical placed as middle center, but the norm is middle left.
Really? huh.  We use ML some, but specifically for notes that ride a line:
MPS-23-001\P(YC-175839)

Mostly we use UL for notes.

hudster

  • Gator
  • Posts: 2848
Text justification.
« Reply #11 on: March 05, 2005, 04:50:35 AM »
I use middle left or middle right, it just depends on the side of the building that the note is placed on.
Revit BDS 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, AutoCAD 2017, 2016, Navisworks 2017, 2016, BIM360 Glue

Dent Cermak

  • Guest
Text justification.
« Reply #12 on: March 05, 2005, 11:27:50 AM »
Text styles, sizes and justifications were established centuries ago by the printing industries and flowed over into the drafting field.
When was the last time you read a right justified book? It would be interesting to try to read a magazine that was printed middle center justified.
It boils down to what looks the most readable doesn't it ? The idea is to transfer the information to the end-user in the clearest manner.

nivuahc

  • Guest
Text justification.
« Reply #13 on: March 05, 2005, 11:48:52 AM »
Quote from: Dent Cermak
Text styles, sizes and justifications were established centuries ago by the printing industries and flowed over into the drafting field.
When was the last time you read a right justified book? It would be interesting to try to read a magazine that was printed middle center justified.
It boils down to what looks the most readable doesn't it ? The idea is to transfer the information to the end-user in the clearest manner.


Words of wisdom.


and you never thought you'd hear that phrase applied to something that Dent had to say

TR

  • Guest
Text justification.
« Reply #14 on: March 05, 2005, 12:14:02 PM »
That statement is scary yet true.

In my field (schematics, P&IDs, Loop & Logic Diagrams) we und up using BC justification most of the time. We use BL for all multiline text but for all tags and a lot of callouts we use BC.

Here's an example of what really bothers me:

Say you have a Control Panel Layout. Typically bellow the control panel you callout it's name and NEMA rating. Now I've seen people use left justified text and they eyeball it so it's centered under the control panel, which it should be. This works fine until you have to edit it of course.