Add text and labels

What you will make

Two room labels, centered in their rooms, and a two-line note, then a correction to one of the labels.

Text height and drawing scale

Text height is in drawing units. In a drawing in millimeters that will be plotted at 1:50, text 2.5 mm tall on paper must be 2.5 × 50 = 125 units tall in the model. On a sheet tab you draw in paper units, so 2.5 there is 2.5 mm on paper.

Place a centered label

1. Type T and press ReturnEnter. The prompt reads Specify start point of text [Justify]:.
2. Type J and press ReturnEnter.
3. At Enter an option [Left/Center/Right/Middle/TL/MC] <L>:, type MC and press ReturnEnter.
4. At Specify insertion point of text, click the middle of a room.
5. At Specify height, type 250 and press ReturnEnter.
6. At Specify rotation angle of text <0>, press ReturnEnter.
7. At Enter text, type KITCHEN and press ReturnEnter.

The label appears, centered on the point you clicked.

1. Press ReturnEnter on the empty Enter text prompt to end the command.

Write a note of several lines

1. Type T and press ReturnEnter.
2. Click where the note starts. With no justification chosen, this is the left end of the first line's baseline.
3. Press ReturnEnter to keep the height you used last.
4. Press ReturnEnter to keep the rotation at 0.
5. Type ALL DIMENSIONS IN MM and press ReturnEnter.
6. Type CHECK ON SITE and press ReturnEnter. It goes on the next line down.
7. Press ReturnEnter on the empty prompt to finish.

Each line is its own text object, spaced 1.667 times the text height apart.

Justification options

Edit text

1. Double-click a text object. It is selected and the cursor goes to the Text box in the right panel.
2. Change the words.
3. Press TabTab to leave the box. The text on the drawing changes.

In the same panel you can change Height, Rotation, the X and Y position and Justify. The Justify list also offers Bottom left, which text from other programs sometimes uses.

Font

All text is drawn in a Helvetica-style font, on screen and in PDFs. Text from opened drawings keeps its words, height and position, but not its original font.

In plotted PDFs, characters outside the Western European set (for example Greek, Cyrillic or Chinese) print as "?", and the history says how many there were.

Common mistakes

• The text is too small to see. The height is in drawing units. In a large drawing, use a large height (see above), or zoom in.
• The command ended after one line. You pressed ReturnEnter on an empty line. Start TEXT again.
• MTEXT made single lines. In CadCraft, MTEXT, MT, DTEXT and DT all run TEXT. A paragraph editor is not built yet: type one line at a time.
• Text in a mirrored copy. It is placed mirrored but stays readable left to right.