Plotmaker AUTOTEXT

[Anonymous]

I love the AutoText feature of PM. When I place an autotext, I see at the bottom Custom 1, 2, and 3. What are these and how are they used??

Can I select a certain piece of text or a letter or number on one drawing to be used as AutoText on another?? It seems you can only select a drawing on a layout for an AutoText reference, but can you select items on that drawing??

[Anonymous]

Auto-text works like a very limited form of data-merge into a text file. Certain keywords in carets (i.e. <DRAWINGNAME>) will insert a given value into the text. The "Custom 1" etc. are fields in the book info.

You can type the keywords in directly rather than inserting them from the edit menu. You can also use then in ArchiCAD and PlotMaker will still insert the correct value.

[Laszlo Nagy]

Check out this ArchiGuide article. I tried to put everything into it:
http://www.graphisoft.com/support/archicad/archiguide/UseofAUTOTEXTinPM.html
Laszlo

[Anonymous]

Thanks guys, so I guess the answer to my question is no, you cannot select text on a drawing as an AutoText reference. That would be nice to where if you have 20 items with keynote callouts and you are referencing these items on other drawings and you either change the number on an item or delete some items and renumber them all that your references to these items would automatically change also.

That would be nice, is it worthy of the wishlist?

[Laszlo Nagy]

Yes, you can always put things on the wishlist. A lot of those items get incorporated into new versions as history tells us.
Laszlo

[Link]

I think there is a (dirty little) workaround. You could import a pmk (or even a view but that could get ugly) that has the name of the text you want to use as autotext. Import it, then right-click on it in PM's Navigator and select 'Set as Autotext Reference'.

Next when you right click during text creation you can choose this as autotext, with a variety of options.

Not very pretty but it may help achieve what you wanted. I think you'll be resticted to 27+3 characters though.

Good luck.

Cheers,
Link.

[Anonymous]

Hah, Link I did think of this, but I would have so many little .pmk drawings all over the place just to get some single digit numbers to autoreference that I think it will just be on the wishlist for now!! Thanks for the suggestion, however!

[fuzzytnth3]

I'm trying to get my head round version 8.1 in particular how you get Autotext <DRAWINGSCALE> command to work but all it seems to display is 1:1.

I've had a look at the ArchiGuide link above and I noticed this...

Drawing Scale and Output Scale will always display "1:1." For PlotMaker all other AUTOTEXT items will work correctly in both Projects/Drawings and in Master Layouts/Layout.

I just wanted to be clear that Drawingscale command just doesn't work at all or does it when you print the document?

[Erika Epstein]

You must select a drawing and then it will relate the scale to that. If you don't, i believe it thinks you are wanting the scale of the layout master which was done at 1:1

[Laszlo Nagy]

Yes, it has a meaning only when it is located in a Drawing placed on a Layout, not on the Layout itself.
So your best bet is to place a <DRAWINGSCALE> text in ArchiCAD and import that view in PM.