Text in AutoCAD: writing it, editing it, resizing it in bulk

A drawing without lettering is a drawing nobody can read. Yet text in AutoCAD is where documents most often come apart: the notes print the size of ants, editing one line takes three clicks, and worst of all, someone else's file opens with the lettering turned into a row of strange characters.

This article follows the order you actually need. The two writing commands and which to pick, four ways to edit, bulk resizing, then the missing-font problem. For the whole drafting and documentation workflow, see the AutoCAD for Construction course.

Two commands for writing text in AutoCAD

AutoCAD has two commands for lettering. They are not two routes to the same place; they produce two quite different objects.

The choice is simple. Short labels standing alone belong in TEXT, because editing and selecting them one by one is quicker. Paragraphs belong in MTEXT.

Background Mask deserves a mention of its own. It lays an opaque backing behind the lettering, so a note sitting over a hatched region stays readable without trimming anything. Only MTEXT offers it, and hatching itself is covered in the HATCH command in CAD.

The single line text command and its four hidden shortcuts

Type DT and press Enter. The command prints a status line, then asks for the insertion point, the height and the rotation angle.

Four shortcuts work only while the command is still running. They save a surprising amount of time, and they vanish the moment you finish, so it pays to know them.

Every prompt is listed on the vendor's TEXT page.

The Justify option decides how the lettering hangs off the point you pick. There are nine anchor points, each named from the initial of its row and its column.

Picking the right anchor at the outset is worth the thought. Grid bubbles should be anchored MC so the label stays centred in the circle however the height changes later. Anchor them BL and they slide off centre the moment you resize.

MTEXT for paragraphs, and how to convert text to mtext

Type MT and Enter, pick the two corners of the editing frame, then type. The whole block is one object no matter how many times you press Enter inside it.

A common need is text written as one kind that now has to become the other. TXT2MTXT merges separate TEXT lines into one MTEXT block. The other direction is EXPLODE, but it has a price worth knowing.

The TXT2MTXT page names a trap no guide mentions. Type SE at the prompt to open the settings dialog, which holds four options worth reading. And the vendor states the condition for keeping the lines separate — "The mtext object retains the multiple lines because the three text objects were aligned vertically".

So the lines have to be vertically aligned to survive as separate lines. If they are not, the whole set collapses onto one long line, or wraps unpredictably. That is why people run the command, watch their note turn to mush, and undo.

The other direction loses things too. EXPLODE on an MTEXT block breaks it into separate TEXT lines and discards every local format inside: bold, italic, stacked fractions, and colour applied to a few words.

Four ways to edit text, and how to resize text in bulk

Most users know only one, which is double-clicking. The four below suit four different jobs, and picking the right one is much quicker.

SCALETEXT is the one worth remembering. The vendor describes it as a command that "enlarges or reduces selected text objects without changing their locations", and the base point is applied individually to each object. That is exactly where it differs from SCALE.

Use SCALE to enlarge a batch of labels and they grow and drift apart, because everything is scaled about one shared base point. Grid bubbles wander off their circles. SCALETEXT grows each label where it stands. See the SCALETEXT page.

Text height has to follow the plot scale

This is the number one cause of lettering that prints the size of ants. The number you type into the height box is a size in the model, while what the reader sees is a size on paper after division by the plot scale.

The arithmetic is one line: the height you type equals the height you want on paper times the denominator of the scale.

Two habits save you the arithmetic each time. One is to build a few styles by scale and keep them in the template. The other is to tick Annotative in the style dialog, after which the program asks for the size on paper and multiplies by each viewport's scale itself.

Text sitting on dimension lines follows a separate route, covered in dimensions in CAD.

Text styles in AutoCAD govern five things at once

Do not set the font and height on individual pieces of text. Set them once in a text style, and everything carrying that style follows.

The About Text Styles page notes something few people register. Text styles "apply to notes, leaders, dimensions, tables, and block attributes" — they govern five object types, not just your notes.

The consequence is real. Change the font on the Standard style and the dimension text, the table text and the block attributes all change with it. So a document should carry a few separate styles: one for notes, one for dimensions, one for the title block.

The vendor is also explicit about the update mechanism: "If you change a setting in a text style, all text objects in the drawing that use the style update automatically". That is the upside, and equally the reason not to tinker with the styles in a drawing somebody else sent you.

Text deserves its own layer too, so the whole set can be switched off in one click when you want to read the geometry. Layer housekeeping is covered in layers in AutoCAD.

Missing fonts in AutoCAD, and how to add one

A file arrives, you open it, and the lettering is a row of strange characters. This is the most common complaint with drawings exchanged between offices, and it has exactly three causes.

The single most important point: do not retype it. The words in the file are intact; your machine is merely rendering them through the wrong code page. Retyping damages a drawing that was never damaged.

When a font is absent, AutoCAD substitutes another one silently rather than reporting an error. The About Substitute Fonts page says the substitute is named in the FONTALT variable, and defaults to simplex.shx. That is the state where the words are right but the letterforms are wrong.

There is a second layer as well, the font mapping file acad.fmp in the Support folder. Each line reads missing font;replacement.ttf. Adding one line there fixes every machine in the office at once, rather than one seat at a time.

Prevention beats cure. Settle a convention for the whole office: every text style uses a Unicode TrueType font, and the whole document uses two fonts at most. The fewer fonts a document carries, the less it breaks as it passes between parties.

SHX fonts are lighter and redraw faster, but most of the ones shipped with the program carry no accented characters. Using a localised SHX set means shipping the font file along with the drawing, or the recipient sees strange characters again.

Frequently asked questions

Why does text print at the size of ants, and where do I fix it?

The height is a model size, not a paper size. Multiply the height you want by the denominator of the plot scale, or tick Annotative and let the program do it.

How do I enlarge a batch of labels without them drifting apart?

Not with SCALE. Use SCALETEXT, which takes a base point per object, so each label grows where it stands.

A drawing opens with strange characters. Is the file corrupt?

No. The words are intact; the machine is missing the font, or the drawing uses a legacy code page. Ask the sender which font, install it, reopen.

Why did merging several lines collapse them onto one line?

The lines have to be vertically aligned for TXT2MTXT to keep them separate. Out of alignment, the whole set collapses.

Why did changing the Standard font also change my dimension text?

Because a text style governs notes, leaders, dimensions, tables and block attributes alike. Keep separate styles for separate jobs rather than one style for everything.