Monday, February 13, 2012

How to create a line type contains text entities?

This AutoCAD tutorial gives an idea to create a custom line type as shown below.

We can start with the following settings to get this done accurately.
Start with a new drawing, set LTS=1, MSLTSCALE=1, PSLTSCALE=1 as we are going to control line type scale using annotative method.
Create a dedicated text style for ‘line type’ style as shown in below to get an easy control over line type text size latter.



Please be noticed that we can’t set text width as it seems to be pushed back to 1 at final stage, so let it be as the default value and don’t forget to select the annotative option.

This is the right time to decide line type structure. In this case the line type structure consists of lines and a text entity which represents the services eg: Fire, Gas, N2 etc. Here I am choosing the text as FIRE in between the lines. The following image is self explanatory to get an idea about dimensional parameters.



Here we can call the express command MKLTYPE to make line type from the structure which we have prepared. Take a look at the attached image below which indicates the command line steps.



Define the left end point of the line structure as starting point and right end point as ending point. Select both lines and text while asking for select object. The created line type will be loaded automatically and you can select it from the drop down to do a test in the current drawing itself.



If you would like to use this line type in other drawings, you can go on with match property /copy & paste method to load linetype easily.
This is my first post in the Easy 'CADing' category and I hope it helps a lot who all are doing combined piping layout and piping shop drawings. Any comments/criticisms/corrections would be much appreciated.