Centerline symbol in text?

[jrlafrance]

Is there a way to show a center line symbol in a line of text? Also is there a code for the "triangle" symbol for a curved property line?

[Exxit]

jrlafrance,

can You show us the symbols?
Center lines: Is it an "T" upside down? if yes, use mtext-> symbol font -> type "^"
or is it the CL? here's a link:http://www.caddepot.com/cgi-bin/downloads/download.cgi?http://www.caddepot.com/fonts/ENGRVR.ZIP

the 2nd symbol is unknown to me :cry:

Lothar

[VERYCIVILDRAFTER]

There is a centerline symbol in the GDT.shx font using a lowercase “q”. It’s kind of ugly and kind of small, but there it is.

As for the delta or change symbol try \U+0394 in simplex mtext.

Trust me, I feel your pain. If you upgrade to 2005 they have a nice new set of symbols for surveyors and civil.

[Exxit]

::thumbs :

I never saw this symbol (CL) before. It's typical an american style, isn't it?

Lothar

[csiarch]

V.C.D.: Expensive reason to upgrade to '05 just to get some new symbols. The "new" symbols that come with RomanS.shx shipped with '5 are Baseline, Monument Line, an "FL" (forget what that means). Center line has been included in RomanS.shx since about 1996, I believe.

Go to CADDEPOT.COM and download my reworked version of RomanS called ROMANSX5.SHX. It has all of the '05 symbols plus many others that are convenient to use. It's free and easy to use because I've included a character chart of all included symbols.

....."but I use Simplex" someone says....

The only difference between Simplex and RomanS is where the characters start in relation to a 0,0 character base point. Simplex characters start on the point; RomanS characters have a little bit of a lead spacing.

It's a waste of time and effort to use GDT when most all of GDT's characters are in Romansx5.

[VERYCIVILDRAFTER]

csiarch
I was just going for the Occom's razor approach. :)

In the long run I agree it's easier to use your font, but jrlafrance will also need to ensure that his coworkers have Romans5.SHX so they don't receive the dreaded ? when reading his text.

I just remember we talked about this before. Your RomansX5 font is posted in here, too. http://www.autocadeverything.com/phpBB/ftopic604.php&highlight=


Just because it was asked;
CL = CENTERLINE (in land development it is most commonly applied to roads)
FL = FLOW LINE (in land development it mostly applies to curb and gutter)

[csiarch]

V.C.D: The copy of RomanS I posted here is out of date; I should remove it if I remember to do so.

Like any other font that is not "native" to AutoCad, you have to send it along with your drawings. No big deal; it's about 19K.

F.Y.I.: The coding of the AutoCad "native" RomanS font is in efficient. AutoCad has a tendency to take the first thing that works and package it with the software. Not too much in the budget for "font preening" I suppose.

In their infinite wisdom, our state cadd gurus insist on using "native" RomanS which, when plotted for cover sheet titles, displays it's little individual vector coded segments -so ugly even an engineer would notice it!

RomanSx5 has been rewritten with arcs replace vector codes for curved portions of characters. While this is virtually undetectable at "normal" text heights, the difference is character display is very noticeable when plotted at about 1/2 inch and up. Rewritten RomanSx5 has significantly more characters in it but because its coding is more efficient, the compiled size is only about 25% larger than the original -even though it has about twice as many characters.

Re: Occam's razor. The simplest solution would be to use my revised version font and distribute it rather than upgrade to '05 just to get a few new characters. BTW: You apparently enjoyed the movie: "Contact" or are you just a Jodie Foster fan?

[VERYCIVILDRAFTER]

Thread jack:

Wow, I haven't see Contact in years, but I probably first heard about Occam's Razor from that movie. When Contact came out, I lived only about a 2 hour drive from the Very Large Array (http://www.nrao.edu/imagegallery/php/level3.php?id=90). That's where they filmed a lot of the movie for those of you that don't know. The only reason I actually remember Occam's Razor is that someone mentioned it in a different online discussion group (the other day) and it was still fresh in my mind. I did like that movie though. :D

If you want to hurt your brain here's the news article we were discussing. (http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041004/full/041004-17.html)

In my defense (not necessarily a good defense) I'm only a wannabe nerd/intellectual. But I'm sure you guys figured that out just by reading my posts.

[csiarch]

Getting back to the original thread topic for a moment, jrlafrance asked if it was posssible to place a centerline (US) [centreline (elsewhere)] in a line of text.

The answer is Yes if it is defined in the font you're using. Now, here is the part that some people don't like and also the one that confuses others -accessing the character.

If the font definition is written following UNIFONT (UNICODE) format, the center (centre)line character should be defined at hexadecimal address h2104. To produce this character in Dtext, type: \u+2104.

If the font definition is written in decimal format (pre-UNIFONT), the character could be anywhere. IF using an older version of RomanS (pre 1996) or one of many other fonts downloadable from the internet, it could be where the author decided it should be, most likely at an address below decimal 256 so it could be reliably accessed using %%NNN.

One way to determine whether the font you're using includes special characters is to "decompile" the SHX file into a shape definition file (SHP) and look at the character definition statements. SHX2SHP.EXE, downloadable from many sites will decompile the file for you, usually in about 2-3 seconds. You can view the SHP file by opening it in WordPad.
Probably more than you wanted to know, eh?

[jrlafrance]

Thanks for all the help. I'm sure I would have figured all this out eventually, but its awefully nice to know people are out there willing to help! :D