Controlling Text in a Drawing - AutoCAD 2011 and AutoCAD LT 2011: No Experience Required - page 367

CHAPtER 8
Controlling text
in a Drawing
You have many uses for text in your drawings, including titles of views,
notes, and dimensions. It's not uncommon for the majority of a page to be
covered with text outlining pertinent information, including legal and code
requirements, construction or manufacturing information, and contact
information for companies or individuals involved in the project. Each of
these might require a different height, orientation, justification, and style
of lettering. To control text, you'll need to learn how to do the following:
Set up text styles to determine how the text will look.
Specify where the text will be and enter it in the drawing.
Modify the text already in your drawing.
AutoCAD offers two types of text objects: single-line and multiline. Single-
line text makes a distinct object of each line of text, whether the line is one
letter or many words. This type of text is useful for titles of drawings, titles
of views within a drawing, room labels, and schedules. You use multiline text
for dimensions, tables, and longer notes. With multiline text , AutoCAD treats
a whole body of multiline text as one object, whether the text consists of one
letter or many paragraphs.
The two types of text share the same text styles, but each has its own com-
mand for placing text in the drawing. When you modify text, you can use the
same commands for either type of text, but the commands operate differ-
ently for multiline text than for single-line text. AutoCAD handles any text
used in dimensioning —a process by which you indicate the sizes of various
components in your drawing—differently from other text; I'll cover dimen-
sioning in Chapter 12, “Dimensioning a Drawing.”
You'll progress through this chapter by first looking at the process of set-
ting up text styles. You'll then start placing and modifying single-line text
in the cabin drawing. Finally, you'll look at the methods for creating and
controlling multiline text as it's used for notes and tables. If you work in