Written by Bob Mecham

Creating a Text Style Standard

Text Style Naming

Implementing text styles makes annotating the drawing more efficient in most situations.  We talk about them in our MicroStation CAD Manager class.  Text styles contain specific predefined text format settings. Having such settings predefined as text styles minimizes the frequency of which settings need to be changed when placing text.

Similar to level naming you will need to develop a common naming standard for text styles. Unlike levels, your text styles will most likely not be related to specific disciplines. In most cases text style definitions are used across disciplines. As a result the text style names will denote the general type of annotation being placed. Another recommended naming convention is to denote somewhere in the text style name if the style uses annotation scale.
An example would be to use an A- prefix, or an –A suffix, on all text style names that use annotation scale.

Text Style Considerations

Step 1: Text Label Audit
Collect the specifications of all the standard labels used in your organization’s drawings. This information may be formally documented, or you may need to review text elements in different CAD files. Categorize how you want to organize the standard text labels in your drawings. From your audit determine if your text styles will be stored in a single dgn library, or need to be separated by discipline into different dgn libraries.

Step 2: Identify Fonts
Identify all of the different fonts used in your design files and CAD platforms. MicroStation allows the use of the legacy MicroStation .rsc file fonts, True Type fonts, and AutoCAD .shx file fonts. The direction of most CAD text support is moving away from the resource RSC and SHX fonts to using True Type fonts.

Step 3: Identify Label Types
Each variation in font, size, justification and other text-specific parameter will require definition of a different text style. Utilizing ByLevel Symbology for text color eliminates the need to create different styles based solely on variations in color. Also note that text using True Type fonts does not support the line weight setting as MicroStation .rsc fonts do.

Step 4: Special Symbols
Determine what special symbols you are using such as Centerline, Degree, Plus/Minus, fractions etc.  If you decide to use True Type fonts be sure the special symbols are available in that font.

Step 5: Annotation Scale
Determine if annotation scale will be used with text elements. You may want to use annotation scale on some labels and not on others. Create different text styles for those labels that will use annotation scale and those that won’t. To determine text size specifications for use with annotation scale, use this simple formula:
Text Size / Drawing Scale = Text Size with annotation scale

How did you come up with your Text Style Standard?

Learn more about setting up Text Standards and DGN Libraries by attending our MicroStation CAD Manager training class.

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