Tilted Text

[Anonymous]

Hello
I'm working with a new engineer and he sent me some of his details.
I've imported his dwg with several const details into AC12(all current) and some (maybe 20%;more in the shown example) of the text is tilted at different angles.
So I selected the text, corrected the tilts made some basic changes to the
details (and all is fine and stays fine in the .pln) then saved as .dwg using the "Save for further editing" option translator and the newly created dwg has the tilted text again as shown below.
I don't have the shx fonts and have to say "skip all". Is that what's causing the tilting?
Or is there another known issue with dwg import/export text tilting?
I should add he's using ACad 14 and all the text looks correct on his screen.
lec

[Thomas Holm]

Erika wrote:
A bit confused here. I have Trueview installed on my pc. In my fonts folder I see 'MT Extra', not MTEXT. Is this what you, Thomas, are referring to?

Nope. Maybe I wasn't clear.

MT Extra is one of several fonts.

MTEXT is a command issued in Autocad (if you use the keyboard option) to create a text block with more than one line.

Re the .shx folder, where do I find that?

.shx is a file format (-extension, like .pln for Archicad), not a folder.

The file format is used by Autocad for vector 'shapes' of various kinds, like line types. In the early days, Autocad could only recognize fonts in .shx format. Nowadays, it can use True Type (.ttf) fonts like most programs.

You frequently get .shx files along with .dwgs from Autocad.

It may be convenient if you collect those files in a folder, to point to when Archicad's translator asks for them. That's what I was referring to.

[Erika Epstein]

Thank you Thomas. I did a search for .shx and found thousands of fonts on my computer. I started to put them in a folder. Yes, some are duplicates.

[Anonymous]

Hi
Thomas wrote:"Being stubborn and nerdy, I maintain that the selected items are not Archicad text blocks, they are Labels."
Not stubborn or nerdy.
My blunder.
I used the term "text blocks" to mean test blocks in the labels and plain text to be regular text whether single line or multi line text not in label.
I see now, that caused more confusion.

Now I see from Karl's and your posts that this is more complicated than I had imagined.
I reopened the original .dwg in AC12 and noted that the length of the leader line did NOT correlate to the degree in which the LABEL was tilted.
So at least that variable seems to have been corralled.
The translator settings; “Custom>Label>Convert labels to Leaders IS and I believe was checked all along.
Screen shot of Original dwg from engineer as seen by T.V. 2010 below;
and Output to dwg as seen by T.V. 2010 in next post.
lec

[Anonymous]

Semi corrected (other issues abound) output to dwg as seen by T.V.2010

If this tilting was a couple of details no big deal.
However this engineer and I are planning full integration of details back and forth, so I appreciate all the help for sure to have a long term solution.
So I'll look into other comments made, such as "explode" before output to dwg.
I'll have to see how that works for him.

Some of the other comments seem over my head at the moment.
But I'll keep trying.
Thanks!
lec

[Thomas Holm]

lec1212 wrote:
...I reopened the original .dwg in AC12 and noted that the length of the leader line did NOT correlate to the degree in which the LABEL was tilted.
So at least that variable seems to have been corralled.
The translator settings; “Custom>Label>Convert labels to Leaders IS and I believe was checked all along.

As always, the devil is in the details.
It's obvious that ArC and AuC treat these things differently.

– I guessed that the tilt, not length, of the closest leader line would correlate to the degree of tilt of the label text. I might be wrong. Your engineer could perhaps make sure that that line is untilted in a test file for you to import?

– What happens if you uncheck the Convert Leaders to Labels setting before you import to Archicad?

[Anonymous]

Hi Thomas
Well you sure are right that the "devils in the details".
One simple UNclick the switch and life is good on the range again.
You were right, it does not appear to be related to fonts.
Thanks for all the insight though, I think I have a little better idea now how to set deal with font issues in Acad>AC>Acad

It was; Translator>Settings in Selected Translator>Custom Functions>Save Extras>Label>and then UNcheck; Convert Labels to Leaders.
I made a wrong assumption (even after you showed me the "switch") that it was to be checked. Hindsight always being 20-20, that was dumb of me.
So now, when either bringing in a dwg to AC12 or back out to Acad.dwg all looks quite normal. Horray,Horray.

I had already known engineers screen/details did not have issues with tilt, so knew it had to be in translation somewhere either in or out phase.

To complicate things, Engineer has a compilation of details he has drawn and collected over the yrs which have many different shx's or ttf font's (as I now know), some in labels some with leaders which translator kept asking for, so that just added to my confused state, once I got the shx fonts from Acad and tried to satisfy the (seemingly endless) translator's request for more specific fonts, things seemed even more confusing.

Thanks so much for all your stay-with-it attention to details!
I don't yet get all of your font wisdom, but a little less fog now.

Life is good again.
Hope things go well for you.
Happy Trails.
lec

[Erika Epstein]

lec,
Remember you can always bring in the dwgs and place them as an external drawing and right onto the layout. This has the advantage, of not bringing in all the dwg's attributes and it will look just like it was drawn; correct pen weights etc.

When I need to edit a dwg, I bring it into a separate detail file as you describe, and then place that view on the layout in the main file. Again, this keeps the dwgs attributes from being added to your main file.