Setting Text type in a DXF...

[Ogre]

A friend of mine is writing a program that will write a DXF file...The only problem is that he does not know how to set the font type in the DXF file...Can anyone help??? Thanks...

[Ed Jobe]

The font type of what?...style, text, mtext...
also, can't he just use acad's SaveAs method, saving to dxf?

[Ogre]

The font type of what?...style, text, mtext...
also, can't he just use acad's SaveAs method, saving to dxf?
It will be text...

Also, this will not be from AutoCAD...He has created a program that will save to a DXF without using AutoCAD...It is a lighting dimming control system design software...If you want to check out the current version you can go here (http://www.lolcontrols.com/index.php?src=gendocs&link=Products_ControlsXpress&category=Main&PHPSESSID=3106662c8619dbe89fe58266267ee488)...

I work for Lightolier Controls and I did all of the CAD blocks for this program...This is one of the things that could keep it nice and clean...When the drawings are exported to DXF, they lose all font information, so I would like to keep it Arial, but it keeps defaulting back to Txt.shx...Thanks again for the help...

[Ed Jobe]

You could go to the dxf reference, but an easy way to verify the syntax would be to create as simple of a file as you can, e.g. from acad.dwt and add one piece of text with desired font. Save as dxf and study the file. Plain text would have to have at least one style in the dwg with the desired font, as text doesn't have a font prop, but a style prop. Mtext could be any style, but with font formatting codes embedded in the text. So if he wants text, when studying the dxf file, you'll have to pay attention to the style table as well as the text's style property.