Font Advise

My office currently uses a custom font that contains foreign characters. For example: if we type %%140 we get an A with a squiggle above it. Is there a standard AutoCAD font that can be used to get these characters? Or a better way of accomplishing this? We have many users and they constantly send out drawings without also sending the font. No matter how big of a club is used to beat them, they never learn. Thanks for any help!

 

If you send out your drawings using Etransmit, the font will go with them - assuming you're using R2004. Otherwise, Pack-N-Go does the trick.

 

The standard fonts aren't going to have your custom character definitions.

This is a training/procedure issue. People will claim they "can't" remember
a routine procedure if you let them. The "big club" is obviously ignored,
demonstrating that they know perfectly well it isn't real. Has anybody ever
experienced any actual consequences for wasting time by repeating the same
mistake?

You might try making a single person responsible for checking all outgoing
drawing packages for completeness, before they're sent. Yes, that will be an
extra step that will make people cry. But you aren't going to get the point
across without making it a formal part of the procedure that MUST be
followed and is subject to verification. Let them know that after a certain
period of 100% compliance, you'll drop the new rule, and reinstitute it
again if necessary.

 

The problem is the majority of users that send out drawings are project engineers, sales or purchasing. Most of them don't even know what AutoCAD is let alone have access to it. I was funneling everything through two people but since us two don't work 24/7, management forced me to open it up to everyone.
Still I'd like to get rid of the customized font if I can. Does anyone know of a AutoCAD standard font that does what I need?

 

Still I'd like to get rid of the customized font if I can. Does anyone
know of a AutoCAD standard font that does what I need?

You didn't say what you needed except an A with squiggle at character 140.
That alone rules out all Acad standard fonts. For that matter, any custom
character at any character code rules out any Acad standard font.

There are only a small number of fonts supplied with Acad. Why not test them
all by changing fonts in a drawing, and see for yourself? There aren't any
"standard" fonts beyond what came with your copy of Acad -- if you don't
have it, neither will anybody else.

Are you actually using any nonstandard characters or do they just happen to
exist in the font? If the characters are in use, they will show up as a
question mark in Acad if the recipient substitutes a different font. If not,
then it doesn't really matter, except that the substituted font won't look
right.

I still say it's a training/procedure issue. If access to drawing files was
"opened up" to the unknowledgeable, then they need to be informed of correct
procedures. Put the font in an easy to find place, and instruct them that it
MUST be sent with every drawing. They don't need to know Acad, they just
need to be taught a simple "how to do things" procedure.

Our drawings contain 3 custom fonts, copies of which are kept in a shared
folder, and everyone in the company (CAD user or not) knows they must be
sent with all outgoing drawing files. This is monkey see, monkey do -- not
brain surgery.

 

I think the original thread got off track from what I wanted to discuss. What I really want to know is how other users out there are handling foreign languages that contain foreign characters on their drawings. For example: French has an E with a mark above it.
Is creating a custom font to display these foreign alphabet characters the best way to handle this or does someone else have a better idea.

 

Is creating a custom font to display these foreign alphabet characters
the best way to handle this

Creating (or buying or licensing ) a custom Acad font is the source of the
issues you originally raised. The drawing won't read correctly unless the
recipient also has the custom font.

You could try using Windows TTF fonts. The two ubiquitous Windows fonts,
Arial and Times Roman, already include a fair selection of foreign language
characters.

Any Acad font which contains non-standard characters will always need to be
packaged with the drawing file. So will any Windows font other than those
above, because you can't assume people have them.

 

Wilin, look into Unicode. It turns out that any Unicode-enabled fonts
(either Windows or Acad) should contain a number of symbols and language
characters, for instance your inflected E is %%201. There are some
complexities in dealing with Unicode -- for instance, the %% trick doesn't
work with mtext, only plain text. In the mtext editor you have to hold down
the ALT key and type the code 0201 on the numeric pad.

 

Thanks Tom. I'll check it out.

 

You can experiment with Acad fonts in the mtext editor. Right-click, pick
Symbol, then Other, and it should bring up your Unicode Character Map. The
unicode for any character you select is shown at the lower right.