Change Text Justification, Keep Same Anchor Point

I use JUSTIFYTEXT command every day, and I love it. It allows to change the grip point but keep the text where it is.

But I have come across one occasion where I want to change the justification of the text, pivoting around the grip point.

I can replicate this manually by picking the text, then selecting the Justification in a drop down in the properties box (for example changing from Left to Right justified and it will visibly move the text).

However, I want to do this sometimes hundreds of times a day. Is there a faster way?

All I am trying to accomplish is to move a text object from one side of a block to the other side. I could do it manually, but the length of the text string makes it unpredictable. If I can pivot the justification then the displacement will be the same every time (2 x the distance from the symbol to the insertion point of the text).

Thanks for any ideas.

I use the properties box on a regular basis and find that to be just as fast as some commands and even faster for some things. Quick Properties, that pops up next to selected objects might be faster and it can be customized to some extent. Some people find that feature annoying. So, you may want to turn it off when not using it.

Properties box is fast enough for one-off tasks, but when I want to do it hundreds of times in a drawing it become tiresome with the dropdowns, and also is prone to mouse errors.

We have surveyed levels that are shown with a symbol, and then a text object showing the height at 45° from the symbol. They default above, but sometimes for clarity I need to move them below. This is diagonally down along predictable angle, and for a predictable length, except that the hights could be in the order of 1, 10 or 100m above sea level (or 1000 I suppose, but even for an normous land mass, Australia does not often get that high!)

So I was thinking that to automate it I would need a command for each different length of text, unless I can change the justification more quickly.

Any surveyors out there? Maybe I could create the symbols to have attributes and use visibility sates or something?

Or even to read the contents of the text object, erase it, insert a new one with the same content in the new location.

It's all up for grabs, but as per my OP, I am trying to re-justify text from the command line, leaving the grip point unchanged.

Properties box is fast enough for one-off tasks, but when I want to do it hundreds of times in a drawing it become tiresome with the dropdowns, and also is prone to mouse errors.

I'm not sure what you mean by this statement. Maybe you are saying that you do not use the properties box very much and are not very familiar with it. Personally, I use it all the time for a variety of things and on multiple objects simultaneously. I am still finding new ways to use it to my advantage. Changing the justification of text requires the use of one pull down menu and the buttons are not hard to hit. Three clicks to select the text and change the justification.

With that being said, it sounds like you would be more comfortable using a dynamic block with visiblity states. But that also would require a few clicks and also doing it hundreds of times. So, I'm not seeing the difference. Maybe I'm missing something here.

I use JUSTIFYTEXT command every day, and I love it. It allows to change the grip point but keep the text where it is.

 

But I have come across one occasion where I want to change the justification of the text, pivoting around the grip point.

 

I can replicate this manually by picking the text, then selecting the Justification in a drop down in the properties box (for example changing from Left to Right justified and it will visibly move the text).

 

However, I want to do this sometimes hundreds of times a day. Is there a faster way?

 

All I am trying to accomplish is to move a text object from one side of a block to the other side. I could do it manually, but the length of the text string makes it unpredictable. If I can pivot the justification then the displacement will be the same every time (2 x the distance from the symbol to the insertion point of the text).

 

Thanks for any ideas.

thanks for JUSTIFYTEXT ...... it's what i've always wanted & never knew i already had it!

happy days

Hi RobDrraw, thanks for your considered reply.

I also use properties box regularly. I always have it docked on the left side of my screen. And I use it to edit single and multiple objects, or the same or different type all the time.

When drawing a land survey contour plan, showing ground levels, it takes up to half of the drawing time to clear up the levels so they are not overlapping. Currently we do a combination of grip edits, move command, or proeprties box edit. I am now looking for something faster to cut down on that part of the process.

My ultimate aim, if I could solve it in the command line, was to write it into a macro and attach it to a Keyboard Shortcut. For example, CTRL+E, to automatically move the text along the 45° by a known distance. This would reduce a repetitive process to a series of pans, zoom, picks and keyboard shortcuts - dramatically improving efficiency of these drawings.

You are right, a visibility state in a dynamic block will be just as slow, or slower. I realise this now that it has been talked about.

thanks for JUSTIFYTEXT ...... it's what i've always wanted & never knew i already had it!

 

happy days

I'm glad! Gems like this are a funny thing. I forget when I discovered this one, but I know it was accidental. Imagine how many other similar things are out there that we do not yet know about!

It may be easier to write a move macro as you have hinted your text is at the same angle all the time. Just pick text then done, I would move it 1 character at a time then just keep repeating.

Australia does not often get that high

Bigal I think you are right. Moving it incrementally is a good idea, I will give it a go.

On average, though, our landscape is flat comapred with much of the world. I had recently been showing a Swiss friend around some euclyptus nature reserves and they laughed at me when I pointed out a mountain in the distance. "We would call that a hill", she said. Haha,

On average, though, our landscape is flat comapred with much of the world. I had recently been showing a Swiss friend around some euclyptus nature reserves and they laughed at me when I pointed out a mountain in the distance. "We would call that a hill", she said. Haha,

I lived in Holland for a number of years, they have a mouintain there (320 meters high) I'd call that a bump. On the other side the lowest point is -7 meters below sea level.

Could you use a block with an attribute, something along the lines of the attached, it will allow you to rotate the block and move the text wherever you want (using the distance1 and angle1 properties. If you grab a whole load of the blocks you can also globally give them the same settings from the properties palette. Unfortunately with it being a block there is no way to get a macro to alter the position values, but it might be better than using justification.

Labels.dwg

Could you use a block with an attribute, something along the lines of the attached, it will allow you to rotate the block and move the text wherever you want (using the distance1 and angle1 properties. If you grab a whole load of the blocks you can also globally give them the same settings from the properties palette. Unfortunately with it being a block there is no way to get a macro to alter the position values, but it might be better than using justification.

The OP is currently using and wants to get away from the properties box.

Properties box is fast enough for one-off tasks, but when I want to do it hundreds of times in a drawing it become tiresome with the dropdowns, and also is prone to mouse errors.

The OP is currently using and wants to get away from the properties box.

The OP also asked about alternatives to justification.

And using a block would allow better precision in the positioning of the text.

Okay, just trying to help you help the OP.

Okay, just trying to help you help the OP.

I know, I wasn't getting at you just explaining my input a bit, it wasn't a definate solution just opening up the discussion to alternatives, I would also offer the suggestions of putting certain blocks onto their own layers as a method of quickly selecting them or possibly using data extraction in combination with excel and then possibly deleting and reinserting blocks after using formulas in excel to highlight the coordinates of blocks that match certain criteria, which is a workaround I use when faced with hundreds of blocks that need some sort of editing. It all depends on the circumstances as to how you go about it.

The has been a long standing problem when you plot survey info ptnum,x,y,ht with pts close together so a manual one at a time solution is normally needed.

Having travelled right around Australia including the highest mountain in AUS, the road map would refer to a Mountain after travelling 200km on a dead flat road Hill sounds right.

For now I have implemented this as a button and as a keyboard shortcut.

JustifyText;MR;UCS;OBject;Last;Move;previous;;d;$m=$(getenv,RLDigits),0,0;UCS;World;

It acts on whatever text object is already selected. I change the environement variable via another button, selecting from 1, 2, or 3 decimal place prebuilt variables in a drop down menu.

Can you snap to the survey mark?

If so you could mirror the text using the mark as the mirror point.

Just make sure the system variable mirrtext is set to 0.

you could mirror the text using the mark as the mirror point.

Dazacad that is a great idea! I love discovering ways to use functions quite differently from their obvious use. The only restriction here is that it's limited to one at a time, but the advantage is that it does not matter the length of the text. (Come to think of it, my last solution had the same constraint, so no loss there.

My first draft of code is:

JustifyText;MR;UCS;OBject;Last;MIRRTEXT;0;MIRROR;Previous;;-0.22,0.1;-0.22,0.4;Yes;UCS;World;

For some reason it is mirroring the new text below the existing, rather than to the left of, but I'm sure some troubleshooting over the next few days will iron it out.

you could mirror the text using the mark as the mirror point.

For some reason it is mirroring the new text below the existing, rather than to the left of, but I'm sure some troubleshooting over the next few days will iron it out.

A quick update. The reason I was getting skewed results was that it was snapping in odd ways to the survey mark.

I resolved this by using the "None" command as a snap override before entering the coordinates of the mirror line.

JustifyText;MR;UCS;OBject;Last;MIRRTEXT;0;MIRROR;Previous;;None;-0.22,0.1;None;-0.22,0.4;Yes;

Thanks again Dazacad.