CPE414

ENGINEERING DRAWING

FUZIEAH BINTI SUBARI

Faculty of Chemical Engineering
Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Shah Alam
Tel: 03-55448011/017-3741082
E-mail:fuzieahs@gmail.com
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TEXT
Text can be added to an AutoCAD drawing to
create notes and labels on your drawings.
There are two different text commands used to
add text to drawings: Text and Mtext.
The text command is a simple way to add basic
text notes.
The height and rotation of the text can be quickly
specified and the text can be viewed on the
drawing while being typed.
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Try adding a small piece of text in a new

drawing using the text command:
command
1) Enter the command text into the command console then ENTER
2) When prompted for a start point, select somewhere in the screen just
left of centre
3) When asked for a height, enter 5
4) When asked for a rotation angle, hit enter to accept the default of 0.
5) Now simply enter your text. Type: CHE414 then hit ENTER to start a
new line. Type: ENGINEERING DRAWING
6) Hit ENTER twice to exit the text command.
The text should be on two
separate lines.
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SINGLE LINE TEXT

Try selecting the text. Notice how each line is

separately selectable and independent of the
previous line? Although the text command is
simple to use, as each line is separately
editable, modifying notes on a drawing can
become a nightmare! This text type is called
single line text.

Single line text Exercise.

Follow the instruction in each block of text
using single line text.

MULTILINE TEXT

Multiline text is the more advanced text tool

within Autocad. It can be chosen from the
DRAW toolbar by this icon:
The multiline text command has its own
editor, with all the options available that you'd
expect to see in a word processing program.
Also, all text on separate lines is treated
together, so editing notes and sentences is
simple.
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multiline text
1) Select the multiline command button
2) Select a first corner, then second corner. When
text is entered into the multiline text editor, it will
automatically start a second line when it comes to
the edge of the text box we specified.
3) The Multiline Text Editor then appears:

From the text formatting window, you can:

Choose the font style, text height, colour.

Add symbols such as diameter or degrees

symbols form the main tab.
Change the text rotation and paragraph
justification settings.

Notice how when the text is selected, it is

treated as one entity rather than separate
lines? This makes it much easier and
quicker to edit. To edit the text in the
drawing area, simply double click the text
with the cursor to open up the text editor.
Text in Autocad is treated like every other
object, it can be rotated, mirrored,
exploded, moved layers etc.
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Background Mask

Background mask inserts an opaque

background so that objects under the text are
covered (masked). The mask will be a
rectangular shape and the size will be controlled
by the Border offset factor. The colour can be
the same as the drawing background or you
may select a different colour. You may do this
by clicking in the text area and selecting the
option Background mask from the menu.
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After selecting this option, a dialog box

will appear. Turn ON the background
mask option.

Enter a value for the border offset factor.

The default value is 1.5.
If you enter 1.0 as the factor, it will be
exactly as the text height.
Factor of 1.5 means that the background
extends by 0.5 times the text height.
For example, figures below shows the
difference in result by changing the border
offset factor value.

Fig: Border offset factor 1.5

Fig: Border offset factor 1.0

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Adding symbols to mtext

There are two main ways of inserting a symbol into

a line of text.

1. Type a code for the required symbol within the

line of text. (for DTEXT and MTEXT).
2. For mtext, use the pull down menu in the text
editing window and insert the symbol. This is
accessed either via the arrow button (see below)
or right clicking in the Text Formatting window and
select the Symbol icon @.
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Symbol Codes

You may also use ASCII

codes e.g.
Alt 258

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For example, for single line text, to enter text

90C, you may need to type in 90%%dC.
Mtext is obviously an easier option because
it eliminates typing long formulas by just
clicking on to the drop down menu.

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Checking Spelling

There are two

methods for editing
a mispelt text.
The first method is
to manually check
the spelling
yourself and edit
the text using the
edit tool for text.
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Firstly, enter some badly spelt single line text (in

English). From the Modify dropdown menu, click on
Edit form the Text submenu. You will see that the text
will be highlighted. Now, you are free to edit the text
like working on a word processing application, which
means you can use the delete or backspace on the
keyboard and retype the text. When you are satisfied,
just press ENTER.
AutoCAD 2007 has an easier way to edit text using
ddedit. You only need to click on the text, and just
edit as usual. This eliminates the hassle of typing
ddedit or running through the drop down menu.
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The other method is by using the Spelling Tool

available in this software. Again, enter a badly
spelt line of text. Next, either click Spelling in the
Tools drop-down menu or type spell or sp at the
command line.
Command: spell
Select objects: 1 found (click on the line of text)
Select objects: ENTER

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The Check Spelling window will appear automatically with a list of suggested spelling for the first error in the text. Click on
the Change button if you agree and are satisfied with the suggested spelling for the misspelled word.

This will keep on going until the last misspelled word in the text, and finally the text is now in perfect spelling.

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Creating a Table in
AutoCAD 2007
It is very tedious to create a column-and-row data
table in older versions of AutoCAD with the Line and
DTEXT commands. AutoCAD's table object and the
TABLESTYLE (TS) and TABLE (TB) commands for
creating it make the job almost fun.

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To create Table, type tb at the command line. You will see a

dialog box appear called Insert Table. You can specify the
number of rows and columns, as well as adjust the column and
row sizes. You can also change the Table Style. But at this
moment, lets just choose the default style which is Standard.
Click on OK, and the dialog box goes away.
You will then be asked to specify an insertion point. You can just
click anywhere you would like to put your table. Your table will
appear as soon as you selected the insertion point.
Together with the table, the
Text Formatting dialog box
will also be visible on the
screen. You may type in
data into your table and
treat it like any regular word
processor.

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Together with the table, the Text Formatting dialog box will
also be visible on the screen. You may type in data into your
table and treat it like any regular word processor.

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Now, produce this table of courses as an exercise:

Font: Times New Roman

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END OF ADDING TEXT IN

AUTOCAD
NEXT LECTURE/LAB:
DIMENSIONING

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