In this session, we solved text challenges with worksheet columns, revision notes, and objects, as well as covering how to join walls without a mitered joint and discussing how to present your existing and proposed site models without too much clutter.
In this session we looked at creating text, dimensions, and annotations. Should you put all of your text and annotations on the design layer or should they will go in the annotation part of the viewport. It’s a good idea to be consistent and it also depends on how you like to work. But for a basic rule of thumb it is often easier to create most of your dimensions, text, and annotations on the design layers for all of your plan drawings. Section and elevation drawings that use the 3D model on the other hand have to have their text and annotations in the annotation part of the viewport.
Topics covered:
Text Tracking allows you to adjust the spacing between letters, so you can make the spacing closer or further apart. No longer do you have to put in spaces to spread the text out.
Check the spelling of your Callouts. When you select text, you can use the right-click to choose Check Spelling, but this does not work if you select a callout. You might think that that will stop you from checking the spelling in a callout note. If you select a callout object (or even several of them) then you can go to Text on the Menu bar and choose Check spelling. This will then check the spelling of all of the selected callout notes.
If you ever need to create text that follows a curving path, use this command from the Text menu. As well as creating 2D text that follows a curving path, this command will also create 3D text that follows the path.
Find/Replace Text is a fantastic command for finding and replacing text in your drawings. I once had a client who had to change all of the notes that related to the roof strap bracing. Using this command meant that it will be done at once without having to look for every reference in document.
V
ectorworks 2015 allows you to create blocks of text with variable spacing for the tab settings. This is new. In the past, all of the tab settings were the same width. Now you can create blocks of text with different width settings with the tabs.
Vectorworks has a spell checker allowing you to check the spelling of individual blocks of text, all the selected text or all the text in the entire drawing.
If you create text styles you can connect them to your custom dimension standards. This means that every time you place a dimension it will automatically set the text to the right style, ensuring that all of your dimension text is the way you want it.
One of the new features with Vectorworks 2015 is the ability to link a class to a Text Style. This gives you a similar control to controlling the graphic style of objects with a class. When you assign your text to a class it will automatically use the text style assigned. This is such an improvement when you have areas of text that have to be on different classes and at different sizes.
Vectorworks 2015 have made some subtle changes to the annotation tools like callouts, drawing labels, elevation benchmarks and dimensions. Taken individually, each of these changes is minor, but they will remove many of your frustrations when dealing with these objects. The elevation benchmark for example now has an offset mode which is going to be a huge bonus where you have elevation benchmarks that are close together.
If you use the Format Text dialog box, you will find there is a Save button on the dialog box. Saving your text style allows you to reuse the same style anywhere in your document. Also, your text style is a resource which you can then share to other files through the Resource Browser.
Vectorworks has worked hard on implementing text improvements for Vectorworks 2015. These improvements include control over text tracking, variable tab settings and using classes to control text size. These changes may seem small, but they will improve your productivity.
The quickest way to control your text is to use the Format Text… command from the text menu. This command is so much faster because it opens a dialog box allowing you to change the font, size, style, justification, etc. all in one dialogue box. If you try to use the commands from the menu bar to control the size, style, etc you’ll find it takes a lot longer to control your text.
If you need to find a word or phrase in your file and edit it, this command will do that. It will find single instances of the word, or can replace all occurrences in the entire file. This is a great way to update your drawings.
I sometimes spell words wrong, and sometimes I just type them wrong. Vectorworks has a check spelling command on the text menu but the quick way is to use the contextual menu (right-click).
You can use the Text Along a Path command to add curved text to a curved wall. You can also use this to Extrude Text.
Editing text – The easiest way to edit text is use the 2D selection tool.
Find/Replace Text – This command can be used to look for a word or a phrase in your file and replace it with another word or phrase. It’s really useful if the client has changed a finish that you have put all over the drawings, of it the engineer makes a change to the engineering requirements. You can get VectorWorks to change all occurrence of the word or phrase.