Can't edit text.

[BradDeVries]

Hello all,

 

I have a title block, that is not an x-ref, and apparently not a block either, that I cannot edit the text in. When I click the titleblock, all the nodes show up beside the text etc, but double clicking etc does nothing. All I get when I click it is the nodes and the little menu in the top left that says 'Properties', 'Object Viewer', and 'Isolate Object'...

 

Any ideas why?

[SLW210]

Can you post the file?

[neophoible]

What did AutoCAD say it was when you LISTed it, and when you looked in Properties with it highlighted?

[BradDeVries]

Can you post the file?

 

Unfortunately I can't, company policy...

 

What did AutoCAD say it was when you LISTed it, and when you looked in Properties with it highlighted?

 

Select objects:

BLOCK REFERENCE Layer: "0"

Space: Paper space

Layout: SWM-1

Handle = 36527

Group = *A8

Block Name: "_cut_"

at point, X= 2.446 Y= 36.452 Z= 0.000

X scale factor: 1.000

Y scale factor: 1.000

rotation angle: 0.0000

Z scale factor: 1.000

Scale uniformly: No

Allow exploding: Yes

BLOCK REFERENCE Layer: "0"

Space: Paper space

Layout: SWM-1

Handle = 36528

Group = *A8

Block Name: "_cut_"

 

 

 

As for when I looked in properties, it just came up with the general tab including colour, scale, layer etc..

[SLW210]

Group = *A8 means you have an anonymous group.

[BradDeVries]

Group = *A8 means you have an anonymous group.

 

 

Ok, how can I go about ungrouping it or whatever so that I can edit the text? Thanks!

[SLW210]

Try the _GROUP command or explode.....other than that I have no idea.

[BradDeVries]

Try the _GROUP command or explode.....other than that I have no idea.

 

hmm..unfortunately if I explode it the attributes reset themselves to their tag name or whatever thats called..

[neophoible]

Yes, it is a Group, and dbl-clicking or clicking and checking Properties will also tell you this. It has Blocks in it as well. You posted an abbreviated LIST of it. UNGROUP should get rid of the grouping.

[neophoible]

I haven't done much with Groups, but it appears that EXPLODE will act on members of the Group and yet maintain the Group.

[BradDeVries]

Yes, it is a Group, and dbl-clicking or clicking and checking Properties will also tell you this. It has Blocks in it as well. You posted an abbreviated LIST of it. UNGROUP should get rid of the grouping.

 

Command: ungroup

Unknown command "UNGROUP". Press F1 for help.

[neophoible]

Command: ungroup

Unknown command "UNGROUP". Press F1 for help.

Well, I wasn’t kidding when I said I haven’t done much with Groups, but UNGROUP should work. Language may be a prob. Perhaps _.UNGROUP will work?

I haven't done much with Groups, but it appears that EXPLODE will act on members of the Group and yet maintain the Group.

This is only partially correct at best regarding EXPLODE. I've tried it on only a couple of cases, but the one with Blocks EXPLODEd & UNGROUPed completely, the one without Blocks did not UNGROUP.

[rkent]

UNGROUP was added in 2012. In 2011 start GROUP and select the name and explode there, pick the "Include Unnamed" box in there to show *A1, etc. CLASSICGROUP in 2012 and 2013.

[neophoible]

UNGROUP was added in 2012. In 2011 start GROUP and select the name and explode there, pick the "Include Unnamed" box in there to show *A1, etc. CLASSICGROUP in 2012 and 2013.

 

Yeah, I realized after posting that 2011 & 2012 don't have the same Group interface. After browsing a bit, I noticed that it's changed a bit besides, that AutoCAD Lt had UNGROUP much earlier, etc. I think I will always prefer Blocks, esp with the Dynamic options, but the Group ability to be ON or OFF and the option for objects to be in more than one Group do sound intriguing. Groups also look much easier to implement, at least initially. Still not sure about mixing Blocks & Groups. Hope exploding within the GROUP command did the trick.

[SLW210]

I already stated the command was _GROUP.

[neophoible]

I already stated the command was _GROUP.

 

Did you mean this?

 

Try the _GROUP command or explode.....other than that I have no idea.

 

I wonder why it didn't work? Brad?

[neophoible]

After a little more investigation, FWIW,IMO EXPLODE is not likely to be a good command to use on Groups, except as an internal option of the GROUP command. Perhaps this is why they finally added a separate command called UNGROUP? (Note that the command line version –GROUP includes the Explode option even in AutoCAD 2012.) I don’t want to go into great detail, but using EXPLODE on Groups means Dimensions, Blocks, Polylines, etc, will be EXPLODEd in the process, and the Group may or may not be completely disbanded. An additional caveat with Groups involves Frozen Layers. Unlike Blocks, Groups do not stay intact in this case. I noticed that you can move nested Groups within a Group, but my AutoCAD session crashed while still testing this. None of the guys around here have ever heard of Groups in AutoCAD. I think I’ll try to keep it that way for now!

 

Now for my latest ‘discovery’, which may be an even easier way to handle the original problem. Group Selectability can be toggled off allowing individual editing of objects. Perhaps the easiest way is to press Shift+Ctrl+A. When Group Selectability is off, you should be able to edit the titleblock attribute like you normally would. After you are done, just press Shift+Ctrl+A and Groups should behave as such once again.

[BradDeVries]

Update: Pickstyle ended up being the problem. It was set to '0' but should be set to '1'. Thanks a lot for the help everyone.

[neophoible]

Update: Pickstyle ended up being the problem. It was set to '0' but should be set to '1'. Thanks a lot for the help everyone.

 

Yes, Pickstyle can disable Group selection, but it should work the other way: 0 turns it off, 1 turns it on. Thus, you would be able to select the Block and edit the Attribute independently with Pickstyle set to 0, right?

[BradDeVries]

Ah yes, that is correct. Set it to zero to be able to edit the group. Thanks!