Annotative Text Does Not Appear in Paperspace

[Bill Tillman]

I am trying out the annotative text feature in AutoCAD 2009. I made a new text style, set to be annotative and to have a paperspace height of 3/8".

 

While in model space I clicked on the Annotation Scale button at the bottom of the screen and selected 1/4"=1'-0". I then entered the text into model space where I wanted it. But when I looked over in the layout where I had a viewport focused on this area of the model the text does not appear. I can try to fence around where it should be and nothing gets selected. I check back in model space and the text is clearly there. I checked and nothing is set in the layers to filter out for this viewport. It's freaky...!

 

What am I doing wrong?

 

RESOLVED - I did not set the ANNOTATIVE SCALE in the properties for the Viewport.

[Bill Tillman]

Okay, I think I have the jest of it but for one thing. I find it kind of annoying that to use Annotative text you have to constantly be changing the Annotative Scale button at the bottom of the screen. Okay that's cool but now I have some text on a detail that I scale in paper space at 3/4"=1'-0". When I change the Annotative Scale to work on another part of the model which I'm scaling at 1/4"=1'-0" two of the text entries in the 3/4"=1'-0" detail change to a very small size. All the rest of the text for this detail stays the same. When I change the Annotative Scale back to 3/4"=1'-0" the text returns to it's proper size. In any case, the text appears at the correct scale in paper space but I'm assuming that's because the viewport scale is governing there. In model space though it appears to be a free-for-all with certain texts. I am researching the properties of this weird text now to see what's different.

[lpseifert]

Maybe this will help

http://heidihewett.blogs.com/my_weblog/files/AutoCAD08_Annotation_Scaling_White_Paper.pdf

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=9493275&linkID=9240615

[Bill Tillman]

To clarify this for future readers, there once again was the roadblock you hit when reading the docs, be it AutoCAD, Linux, or just about anything out there. The authors just don't put in the little points that can add up to the big points. To cut to the chase, the docs and the video I watched on Annotative Text and Dimensions never mentioned that...

 

"by setting the Annotative Scale, you are forcing only the dimensions and/or text that are set to that Annotative Scale to appear in that Viewport."

 

Oh I guess one could have (or should have) inferred that but a simple, one line sentence to their script which simply said...

 

"Only the dimensions and text with an Annotative Scale that matches the particular Annotative Scale of a viewport will appear in that viewport."

 

Now I'm going to experiment with this scenario. I have a detail in model space that I will use in two different Viewports in paper space. Each viewport will be set to a different scale. BUT, and there is always as big BUT, I will want some of the dimensions to show up in both viewports. I assume there is a way to do this.

[lpseifert]

You need to set the annotation scale to the dimension for it to show in viewports with different annotation scales. In this case the dimension would show in viewports with annoscales of 1=20, 1=50, 1=100

[RickyD302]

You can have AutoCAD automatically add annotative scale when changing viewport scales but I don't think this is the default. Select the text you want and right click, move mouse cursor to annotative object scale and then select Add Current Scale. The text should change if not then you might have to remove previous scales. In our office we've disabled adding scales automatically because having to many scales will great affect performance. The worst is when changing viewport scale. I've had to wait as long as 4 min to get my cursor back....Autodesk is aware of this and is working on a patch.