Is this incorrect?
Recently I had to import a specific PDF which had specific font sizes that I had to keep.
After import and exploding the PDF the point size in AC was wrong.
It had not changed size since the drawing was at 1:1 scale but what was 18pts in Pages, Illustrator, Affinity Designer, was "reported" as 12.5 pts in AC.
If I set the font size in AC and then exported the PDF what in AC was 18 pts became 25.4 pts in every other graphics program. Size didn't change.
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Why is this important?
Cad Standards minimum size for dimension text is 2.5mm which converts to 7.0xx points.
As architects we are trained to place as much information as possible in the drawings and this is why we try to use the smallest font size allowed.
If you selected 7pts as your default size you have actually been using 9.9 point size.
This means that you spent more time trying to fit/arrange dimensions because of their size.
If you were required to comply to a specific fonts sizes for a project (I had 2 where they were specific about this, one of them US Federal requirements, the other for a multinational) then you are not complying.
I have no idea what the legal implications are, but at a minimum I certified that I complied with all of my clients requirements as part of the project close out and this is not true. At least the font sizes are bigger than the required ones.
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How long has this been the case?
No idea but I defined my favorites a long time ago and I had not noticed any size change. IIRC there were some grumblings during Betas were fonts were behaving incorrectly but the fixes were not considered important enough to be fixed.
Tried it in AC25 with the same reults
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Hope that I am wrong but it looks like I'll be redefining favorites and updating dim size in my current projects besides talking with my insurance…
Somebody else needs to check the MM sizes and AC's windows version…
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Fonts size set in AC:
Exported as PDF and opened in Affinity Designer 36 pts is reported as 50.8 for all three font types:
In Affinity placed another set of fonts with the "correct" size:
Importing the PDF into AC and exploding. The correct font sizes are shown as:
Everybody in this thread has missed the point.
"Why is this important?
Cad Standards minimum size for dimension text is 2.5mm which converts to 7.0xx points."
2.5mm text in architectural drawing is NOT a 7point font in other programs.
It IS text that touches 2 lines 2.5mm apart...
You can show me 1000 programs that say the same thing, but that is "WRONG" for architectural drawing standards, which measure the height of the character, not the height of the box that the characters all fit in.
The height is the capital "M" from the Top to the Bottom of the capital character, not the height of the font set.
Please show me a document for physical drafting where it says there is a significant gap between the guide lines for the letters and the text being drawn.
It is a shame that for the American version of Archicad they use a term for the capital character text height which doesn't match the standards for other programs that describe it in font set heights, and has led to confusion, but it is correct in the rest of the Archicad versions that use millimeters to measure the text height.
even the example shows the text being 10mm in the previous example, look the "1" and the "t" are 10mm high 🙂
I think that everybody here who has commented about things fitting in boxes are too young to have drawn by hand and do not know what text height is on a piece of paper.
The Architectural University I went to was a psychometric one that looked at how people experience the environment, so we learnt about how aging people need text to be larger, hence a minimum of 2.5mm (character height and in capitals) to be readable by supervisors/experienced (older) people on site.
Not young enough based on my drawings…
OK, think I have it now.
AC measures "Font Height" which is different from "Font Size" so the rule is "minimum text HEIGHT has to be 2.5mm" not 25mm font Size.
So for my projects that specified 18 pts size if I want to use AC then I need to use the ±70% scale.
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This shouldn't say Size it should say Font Height.
and the wish could be to have both measurements so that I can avoid this brain fart in the future…
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As you wrote in your first post "AC is right and everybody else in the world is wrong…" but in truth everybody is right…
PS.
IIRC text in the hand drawing is 2mm with a 1mm gap.
Arial Narrow is a little bit taller.
D-Din and Avenir Condensed hit the size perfectly
ahh... the Asch conformity study.
Remember for drafting and graphic design there are different answers.
sometime you just have to make a favorite from an imported text size to set things to the "Other peoples" standards.
as Prof. Harold Marshall use to ask:
"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?"
answer:
"Yes and No.
It makes an objective sound, the physical wave movement of the air,
But it doesn't make a subjective sound, an observer interpreting the sound"
Hopefully anybody reading this can work out what Archicad does differently from Graphics/word programs,
that is why I added this description of the font parameters.
Archicad its value 11 for text height, design programs its value 13 for font size...completely different measurements.
the difference in your example is a factor of 51/72 = 0.70833333333333333333
Cap Height, better than Font Height, and not Font Size?
Still looking?
