mtext width bug

[n_withers]

I've been taunted by a bug in the Mtext width setting for a while now. When I create mtext entities, or even multi-line attributes, I set the width of the textbox to a specific size. Once I save, close, and reopen the file, the width has been reset to nearly 0. This happens all the time. I reset the width of the mtext boxes, save, close, and reopen the file to find that they have been shrunk again. Does anyone know how to fix this? Has anyone else run into this bug? It's really ruining my drawings, and has made my boss wonder if I really know how to use ACAD. I don't remember if this happened in AutoCAD 2010, but it has certainly gotten worse since I upgraded to 2011.

[Dave Jones]

I use MText a lot and have never had this problem and I've never heard of anyone else that has either. Not to say you're not having a problem, just bring it up because in my mind it must be something about how you are setting the text box width, or maybe the font you are using. Something that you are doing is different than what I am doing. So, can you run through the steps you take to create your MText, how you set your MText box width? What fonts do you use? shx? ttf? does this happen with one particular font and not others? Are your fonts set 0 height? There could be any number of reasons why you are having this problem so we need to just start at the top and work our way down :)
Dave
DDP

[n_withers]

I am using a TTF (Arial) font set to 0 height. I start the MTEXT command and pick the two opposing corners that I want for the box size. After that I type what I want and go on about my business. After I close the file and later return to do some work, I find that the text box width has shrunk to almost 0. It never goes all the way to 0, which I find odd. BTW, the text is annotative.

Also, I notice that I cannot set the textbox width via the properties palette. I thought I remember being able to do this in 2010, but maybe I am wrong. Now I must either use the stretch grip, or open the mtext editor and stretch it there. I cannot find a place to type in a width... which I would prefer to do in some cases.

Any ideas?

[Dave Jones]

just for grins try setting your MText box width at the command line and see if that fixes it:

Command: MTEXT
Current text style: "SansSerif" Text height: 0.2000 Annotative: No
Specify first corner:
Specify opposite corner or [Height/Justify/Line
spacing/Rotation/Style/Width/Columns]: w

Specify width: 3

[n_withers]

I just figured it out. Mtext Columns were the culprit. The MTEXTCOLUMN variable was turned on in our drawing template. And somehow several, but not all, instances of MTEXT were getting goofy small values assigned to the column width setting. I will now be writing some lisp code to turn off the variable in every drawing I open for a while.

[Dave Jones]

it's always something isn't it?
:)

glad that you solved the problem