AutoCAD Font Error in Shared Drawing Template

Hi All,

Think this is in the right category... Right.. I have just rolled out a new standard drawing template to be used by my colleagues which is located on a server. This gets copied onto a folder on each persons machine to their local drive daily, which AutoCAD then uses as the location for templates and the qnew command...

11/12 colleagues have been set up with the template without a hitch however the remaining machine is really bugging me. Our company logo uses a particular font (based on Bank Gothic) and on the remaining machine, our company logo changes to a default font (nothing like it). The PC has the font installed (through windows) and is not anything different to most of the other machines that work with the template... Its almost as if his AutoCAD can't find the font... Not a problem per-say with the template as everyone theoretically uses the exact same file.

Any suggestions? I'm on ACAD 2010, the other machines are LT2008 (the template has been saved down to 2007)

All help welcomed!

Cheers

Ollie

This may not be the solution you would like, but what I did to overcome a similar issue (sending cad files to clients) was to convert the text in our logo (also a custom font) to base autocad objects then make the whole thing a block so no reference to the font remains.

Okay, not what I really wanted to go and do, but I took your suggestion Cary with the following result. I exploded the text from our logo and the result was that the text displayed in the font that the logo reverts back to on the single trouble machine. (think that makes sense) The font displaying incorrectly on the trouble machine is the same as that that appears after exploding the mtext contained within our logo..... Back to square one I'm afraid. Any other suggestions?

Now I've read your comment again.....

Do you mean you are using (say) ariel and this is OK on 11 machines. On the other machine it is displaying as Times. However when you explode it on any machine it looks like it was done in Times?

not that i have a solution.

Dave,

In a way yes... using arial and times as an example..... Logo made using arial with some other linework and converted to a block (for distribution elsewhere). 11/12 machines display it in arial. The 12th machine displays it in Times BUT says it is actually arial when the text is edited.... when exploded on one of the 11 machines that it displays correctly, it looks like times after exploding....

Just really odd as all the machines are pretty much the same (2 are desktops, 9 laptops. 1 of the laptops is full cad not LT).

Cheers

Ollie

now we have defined the situation I'm still no nearer to suggesting a solution.

how does a text object appear when created using that style on the rogue machine?

Remember we're dealing with Font names and Style names. So, it is entirely possible to select Arial MS Unicode as the Font name yet assign a Style name of Times to it. AutoCAD doesn't care. We can also select Times New Roman as our Font name and assign the Style name Arial to it. Sometimes we have too many options to mess ourselves up in AutoCAD. Personally, I think the Style name should be very similar to the Font name to avoid any confusion.

I think that the original suggestion to explode text involved two explosions.

The first one exploded the Mtext, and then there should have been a second explosion using TextExplode from ExpressTools. If you did this second explosion, then there is no way that any font file can influence the shape of the entity in the drawing.

Perhaps you could confirm whether this second explosion took place. Thank you.

Or perhaps you are pursuing the avenue of getting the correct font files in place.

Dave,

Font created using on the rogue machine appears incorrect too. I have reinstalled the font in question through windows several times now (just to save confusion, the font is based on Bank Gothic so there is not much like it in terms of style and font name)

I have attached a pic a the two fonts. The rogue font is the same as the Logo but after being exploded.

Cheers

Ollie

Eldon,

Using textexplode seems to have done it thanks (on my machine anyway.... just need to update server version of the template!). Haven't really used express tools much before so will start having a play round with its other toys!

Will keep you posted if it sorts the rogue machine problem!

Cheers

Ollie

If you did this second explosion, then there is no way that any font file can influence the shape of the entity in the drawing.

while I agree that it shouldn't influence it, I have seen odd things happen when text objects are exploded with the express tool. We had one text object that would mirror everytime it exploded and be stretched by an odd amount. fortunately that one was tedious but possible to get to where we wanted to be.

Eldon,

 

Using textexplode seems to have done it thanks (on my machine anyway.... just need to update server version of the template!). Haven't really used express tools much before so will start having a play round with its other toys!

 

Will keep you posted if it sorts the rogue machine problem!

 

Cheers

Ollie

I suggested that earlier but didn't post my reply as I thought you had already done it. Oh well.....

I suppose I should have clarified a bit. When I said "convert the logo to cad objects" I actually meant with an external tool (in our case, I used Adobe Illustrator) to vectorize the text and our logo tree, then import that into cad and make the block. Illustrator does a much cleaner job of vectorizing text than exploding it I think.