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AutoCAD Productivity

Avoid Using ‘Standard’ in Text & Dimension Styles

by Michael Beall

From: AutoCAD Productivity Articles #141
Originally published: August 2015

In addition to Layer 0, every single drawing on the planet has a Text style called ‘Standard’, and a Dimension style called ‘Standard’. They're the defaults.

When developing company standards, it's best to not modify the Standard styles; leave 'em alone and make your own.

And here's why. Let's say you have text you added to Drawing A (using your modified ‘Standard’ text style to use the Trebuchet font), and you drag that text into Drawing B where the Standard text style uses the TXT.SHX font.

Since Drawing B already has a ‘Standard’ text style—see opening sentence, above—who do you think will "win" when it comes to how the text looks? The text in Drawing B will use the font which is already assigned to the Standard text style.

Copying text from one drawing to another

In the illustration, you see the result when I drag the text from Drawing A into Drawing B. Questions?

See all the articles published in August 2015

Michael's Corner

Between 2003 and 2016, Michael Beall (and one or two guests) wrote almost 600 articles for CADTutor. The focus of these articles is AutoCAD productivity, and although some of them are now more than a few years old, most remain relevant to current versions of AutoCAD. The article above is just one example. Check out Michael's Corner for a full listing.

Tip of the Day

Selection Preview Cycling

Selection Preview CyclingMaking positive selections is much easier now that AutoCAD highlights (previews) objects as you mouse over them. However, it can still be difficult to select the right object when drawings become complicated with lots of overlapping objects. Fortunately, AutoCAD allows you to cycle through all the overlapping objects under the cursor.

All you need to do is hold down the Shift key and then repeatedly hit the Spacebar (Shift + Space). Each object under the cursor will be highlighted in turn and you can easily pick the one you want.

You can use a similar technique to cycle through sub-objects such as faces and edges on 3D Solids. To cycle through sub-objects, hold down the Control key and hit the Spacebar repeatedly (Ctrl + Space).

Today's tip is by David Watson

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