Text is invisible in Paper Space

I assumed you had block "G" and the text that goes with it (ex. - ST12, 111.53) on Defpoints (and turned off) for a reason. Is that true or false?

It is curious that Dana W had trouble opening your drawing. I used DWG TrueView 2010 and had no trouble converting it.

 

When you have a distant object, I zoom extents, then zoom .8x. This leaves a space around everything. Window the whole area, and you can see the grips of all the objects. Just zoom in to one of them and you can see what you are erasing.

 

As you are having trouble seeing what I am seeing, I thought it would be kind if I re-posted your drawing with the layers turned on and the distant object removed.

The first time I tried to TrueView it, I had just tried to open it in AutoCAD and AutoCAD was still open so maybe I got a Windows file flag stuck in the AutoCAD Dwg Launcher and it's still there. I dunno.

Your dims are annotative, however in dimstyle and text style you have text set to 750 for a height. When using annotative you set the text height in dimstyle to the plot height, and in text style you set the text height to zero. The arrow size in dimstyle also needs to be set to the paper plot length, like 2mm for example. Because your annotative objects are set to a scale of 1:1 and the viewport is set to 1:500 the annotative items won't show.

Your blocks are the same way, they are scaled to 384 but they are annotative, they would need to start out at a scale of 1.

It’s about now that my ignorance starts to show. Well I suspect most of you have noticed it already.

This thread has attracted a lot of responses some of which I don’t understand. As I explained in post #8 I only need to learn enough to get me through my present project.

Reviewing the thread it would appear that Nestly in post #6 was on the right track.

ReMark in post #19 gave me the answer that I needed, but I have only just realised it.

By turning off the Annotative property the missing objects do show up in Layout Space. I proved this by changing the setting for one or two objects in the properties panel.

BUT I can’t see how to change the property universally for all text and dimension object. Can you give me a hint?

A number of questions have been asked so I have to respond to them as well.

Rkent #23: Thanks for the advice but I don’t want to master Annotative items just right now.

ReMark #21 Not sure what you mean but I did have DEFPOINTS turned off on purpose. Only a few reference points from the original topographical survey were on that layer – at least as far as I could see on my version of AutoCAD – but according to some posts there appears to be some alternative experiences. Is that clear?

SLW210 #20 See immediately above.

ReMark #19 Yes I know about the remote object. See half way down post #17. I am drawing full size in Model Space and only scaling in Paper Space which I understand is the correct way to do things. Is that correct?

Please clearly explain what you mean by "....only scaling in Paper Space". Are you referring to the scale assigned to the viewport or something else entirely?

I assumed you deliberately turned Defpoints off since the objects, a block and some text, were not required by you in the final layout. I have no problem with that; I just wanted you to confirm it that's all.

I set the scale of the drawing that I will print out using the scale option drop down list at the lower right of the screen when in Layout view. Does that make sense? I can amplify if required.

You are actually setting the viewport scale not the plot scale. That's done in the Plot dialog box. Layouts are normally plotted at a 1:1 scale. AutoCAD will plot the contents of your viewports based upon the scale that is assigned to them.

So, you are good to go now? You solved all your problems? Yes/No/I don't know?

Thanks for your continued interest ReMark

Well not quite fully answered.

In post #24 I said...

"By turning off the Annotative property the missing objects do show up in Layout Space. I proved this by changing the setting for one or two objects in the properties panel.

BUT I can’t see how to change the property universally for all text and dimension object. Can you give me a hint?"

Can you help me with that - although a search in the documentation should be easy.

And I also forgot to say thanks to Eldon for sticking with this in spite of the fact that we were up the wrong creek and I was typing too small for his eysight - sorry Eldon.

I don't have the drawing available to me at the moment. Refresh my memory. Is all your text and dimensions on their own layers?

And I also forgot to say thanks to Eldon for sticking with this in spite of the fact that we were up the wrong creek and I was typing too small for his eysight - sorry Eldon.

I also have learned from this thread, that DWG TrueView cannot be trusted to convert all these new fangled techniques (Annotative properties) to be seen properly by the older versions of AutoCAD. I should have seen sooner that your file of some 200K size became an 8MB drawing for r2000. No wonder I was seeing things that others could not (even if the print was very small )

Hello ReMark,

The problem was never to do with layers. My text and dimensions are all on layers called Annotations and Dimensions.

The problem was that I have established styles that were Annotative (I thought that was a good idea without having the faintest idea about what I was doing) but without any realisation that scaling was important - I ignored it.

By turning Annotative off on one or two objects in the Properties Pallet the problem was solved.

But there are a lot of objects to correct and I suspect there is a place where I can do that so that it applies to everything I have set as Annotative.

Just thrashing around the desktop I did not find the place. I will check out the help this evening but any hint would be welcome.

You can Select them all at the same time and change the Annotation to "No" in the Properties. Turn off all but the desired layers if that makes it easier.

The Properties sheet will only show attribute values that are equal when a bunch of objects are selected at the same time, so the value may show as blank when you first open the properties sheet because you already changed some to No. Just select No anyway.

Just another note that might assist someone who stumbles on this thread...

At one point I had a rogue object 53.6 kilometers away from the main drawing objects which I could not find.

The problem was that I did not know what this was or what layer it was on. I had to turn on all the layers, zoom extents then zoom 0.8x then window the entire screen to select all the objects. This as described by Eldon in post #16.

However for some reason attempting to select so many items froze the display and once or twice crashed AutoCAD (this may be a topic for another thread). But I never found the offending object. I did spend time attempting to zoom in on specks of dust on the computer screen!

The solution was not to try to select everything but just select areas of the desktop that did not include the main drawing. That did the trick – only selecting the single very small item which was then deleted.

I hope this helps.

Thanks Dana W

That’s OK – I can do that but that will not change the basic settings. Any further text or dimensions I create will also have to be amended individually.

I told you this in post 23 and pretty much gave you everything you needed to resolve it all. Properties is your friend.

See attached.

woodroyd.dwg

That's right. If you have a pig of a drawing and/or your computer is a little on the wheezy side, selecting thousands of objects or dozens of complicated objects can give the program a brain phart. Sometimes simply selecting a particularly dense hatch can do it. Most of the time, in a minute or less, things free back up, but sometimes AutoCAD will crash.

I insanely and mistakenly hatched a 27 acre lot with the AR-SAND pattern at 1:1 scale. I couldn't even select it to erase it without my machine locking up for almost 3 minutes. It is hatched with AR131 at 120 scale now.

Thanks Dana W

 

That’s OK – I can do that but that will not change the basic settings. Any further text or dimensions I create will also have to be amended individually.

Go into the text style dialog and uncheck Annotative or change to a non annotative text style in your dim style.

Go to the modify page on your dimstyle dialog and uncheck Annotative on the Fit page.

Doing both the above will globally change all the dimensions done with that particular style without having to select them.

Word of advice. Never modify the STANDARD text or dimension styles. You might need a baseline template if you really screw up one of your styles. I never use them for anything other than starting points for the styles I will use for real in the drawing or template I am starting.

The reason behind my last question was I thought the QSelect could have been used in some manner. But I see that you've got it all covered now.

Replies…

ReMark: I must say I don’t know many typed commands – I do everything (almost) by pointing and clicking. I will try out QSelect. Is it a bit like "selectall” - no don’t tell me it’ll spoil my fun.

Dana W Thanks – I will follow your advice. I realised that it was best not to modify the Standard text style. I have used type setting and other graphics programmes with similar situations.

rkent: Yes I know rkent, but forgive me – as I said in post #8…

35 years ago I practiced as a civil engineer. Back then all we had was a drawing board and a pencil. I have been running my own business since then where drawing has not been a feature. So I have come to AutoCAD late in the day.

Frankly I only have one project and when that is complete I will probably never draw anything again.

So I have no intention of becoming an AutoCAD expert – I just need to learn enough to get through.

So I just needed a quick solution that I did not have to think about too deeply. The trouble is that I will probably dig into this more deeply ‘cos I can’t help it.

Hopefully that wraps up this thread.

Thanks to all contributors.