The CHTEXT command lets you modify the text content, style and attributes of a single
text, or selectively modify the text style and attributes of a group of selected texts,
via a GUI dialogue operation manner. It provides two different modes of operations;
namely, they are:
When you enter the CHTEXT command, it will ask you to select the texts to modify first
via the General Object Selection operation, with the prompt:
After the completion of the text selection, CHTEXT will pop up a dialog window to
proceed the text modification operation, however, depending on the number of text entities
being selected. If you have just selected on single text entity, you are going to modify
the text in the single mode and CHTEXT will pop up the dialogue window as shown below:
If you have selected more than one text entities, CHTEXT will pop up the dialogue
window as shown below:
The following describes the details of these screen items from the above two dialogue
windows.
Text Entry and Preview
In single text modification mode, you are allowed to modify the text content by
clicking the text entry field. The resulted image of the text using current text style
will be displayed in the preview window below the text entry field.
The preview window is useful not only in showing the effect of the current text style
used for the text creation, but also in justifying the use of the built-in feature text
functions and symbols in the text. See the TEXT commands for a list of these functions and
symbols.
Note that if you erase all the text from the text entry field and make it empty, a
message string like "Click Here to Enter Text" will appear in the field.
However, it will disappear when you click the field to enter new text again.
You may cut all the text from the entry field to the clipboard by pressing
<Ctrl/X> key and paste in the text from the clipboard by pressing <Ctrl/V>
key. To enter these two control codes to the entry field, you have to press down the
Scroll Lock key. An alternative way to enter control codes is to use the ALT-nnn sequence.
The <Ctrl/X> can be entered by ALT-24 and <Ctrl/V>, ALT-22.
The [Toler.] Button
In single text modification mode, if the text to modify is a tolerance string or you
would like to change it into a string of tolerance expression, you may click the [Toler.]
button to modify it in tolerance setting method. CHTEXT will internally invoke the text
input handler TOLERSTR, the one called by the TOLERANCE command, to handle the tolerance
string input, which will help you constructing the tolerance expression using feature text
functions.
The [Sample] Button
In both modes, you may click this button to sample an existing text entity from the
drawing to setup the target text style and text attributes. You will be asked to pick up
the text by the prompt:
Please select the text to copy style:
Note that in single mode, if the text entry field is empty, the text read from the
sample text entity will also be duplicated into the entry field for your further editing.
Text Style Fonts
There are two parameter items in the "Text Style Fonts" group; namely, they
are
Standard This
item specifies the main text style name used for the text in ASCII codes.
Extended This
item specifies the extension text style name used for the text in non-ascii codes, such as
the two-byte coded Chinese, Japanese and Korean, and multi-byte coded Thai.
There are two combo-boxes for each of the above parameter setups. The shorter one on
the left shows the name of the text style, which is the name used in the drawing. And, the
longer one on the right shows the type and the name of the font, if the font name is
available. Both of them provide the same selection set of the available fonts in the
system, though in different view of the fonts. Changing either one of them will update the
other.
See DDSTYLE for detail descriptions about these two same parameter items, including the
building of the Loadable Font Table. CHTEXT will automatically call
DDSTYLE to build the Loadable Font Table if the font table is missing or you have
clicked at the tiny unnamed button on the right-most side of this "Text Style
Fonts" group.
Text Attributes
The following text attributes are provided in both modes as the target of modification.
Note that the display name of these attribute items from the both dialogue windows have a
little difference.
Text Height This
item specifies the size of the text font in height. If this value is negative, the text
will be mirrored with respect to the base writing line.
Text Width This
item specifies the width factor of the text font to generate. It is usually 1. If this
value is negative, the text will be mirrored to the opposite of the writing direction.
Oblique Angle
This item specifies the oblique angle of the text font to generate, in units of degrees.
It is usually 0. Positive value slant the font backward, and negative value slant it
forward. However, if the attribute to "Oblique from X-Base" is enabled, positive
value will slant the font up-ward, and negative value, downward.
Char Spacing This
item specifies the character space adjustment in text font generation. A positive value
specifies absolute space (additional to the original one defined by the font), negative
value specifies relative space ratio over the text height. A zero value will disable this
adjustment function.
For multiple text modification, the above parameter items are provided in combo-box.
This is because they are provided by the DDSTYLE dialogue operation. You may pick such
item by its dropdown button to select a value directly from those of common use. For
single text modification, these items are provided by pure value entry. You may pick at
the value box and enter the value directly.
Note that the item "Row Spacing" from the multiple text modification dialogue
window is not effective to the existing text modification.
Besides the above value control attributes, there are also on-off control attributes
provided in check boxes:
Rotate Font 90 Deg
This on-off state selection specifies whether to rotate the text font by
90?Counter-ClockWise or not. This attribute is useful in writing Chinese/Japanese/Korean
texts or the likes in vertical manner.
Oblique from X-Base
This on-off state selection specifies whether to oblique the font from the its base line
or not, if the oblique angle is not zero. If it is off, the text font will be oblique in
the usual way. However, if it is on, the font will be oblique from its base line, suitable
for text font in vertical writing.
Modification Selection
In multiple text modification, you may specify to update only specific text attributes
of these selected text. You may select the text attributes to update by making a check on
its corresponding check box from the Modification Selection group.
Other Buttons
You may press the [OK] button to conclude the text modification, press the [Help]
button to see the helping text, and press the [Cancel] button to cancel the CHTEXT
operation. Pressing <ESC> key also quits CHTEXT.
