The best way to insert standard text phrases

David Waight

I don't know if there is another way to achieve this.

I use lots of standard text phrases in my work and wondered if I was doing this the best way.

I have created a drawing with multiple blocks in of each standard text phrase I have and when I start a new drawing and I want to add my standard text phrase, I open the Drawing Explorer and navigate to the drawing with the standard phrases blocks in and choose the one I need.

This allows me to have a drawing for each set of phrases, say for example regular customers, materials, product codes etc.

Is there another way to have some kind of library or menu command immediately available for all drawings, whereby I can choose the phrase from a list without having to navigate to a specific folder every time or include all the blocks in template files?

I appreciate I could be missing a very simple command I didn't know about to achieve this.

Thanks in advance,

David Waight

John Gaunt

I do fairly similar, all my most commonly used notes are in one file from which I cut and paste text or mtext entities.

My typical details are in there too.

The file name starts with an A so explorer can find it easily.

Jason Bourhill

Hi David,

If you have already created blocks with standard text, then you could utilise the Drawing Explorer to provide easier access. The Folder tab in the Drawing Explorer allows you to add folders to browse for symbols in, you could add the folder with your standard text blocks in. The Drawing Explorer also allows you to add selected blocks to a toolpalette, which would make access to commonly used text even easier. The Toolpalette provides additional options, such as exploding the block on insertion, and setting the layer to insert on. This Blog posting goes through some of these features:
http://blog.bricsys.com/2012/08/tip-working-with-blocks.html

Regards,

Jason Bourhill

CAD Concepts

David Waight

John & Jason,

Thanks for the replies, I was obviously on the right track!

For future reference I found this (http://www.lee-mac.com/listboxsync.html) on Lee Mac's sight, which could be a basis for a convenient method of text insertion, if I can persuade Lee to develop it further or learn a bit of Lisp myself!

Many Thanks,

David Waight

Scott McKenzie

You could also create a simple lisp routine which would allow you to insert a block from that template drawing.  If you have named your blocks with patterns in the names, you can extend the lisp routine to include a dialogue box that lists all of the blocks in that drawing but also contains fields so that you can refine your search.  For instance if you have Electrical notes and Mechanical notes, naming your blocks Mech_Phrase1, Mech_Phrase2, Elec_Phrase1, Elec_Phrase2 or something similar would allow you to have a drop down list with two options Mech and Elec, selecting either would reduce the blocks in the list making it really easy to find and insert stuff if you have a ton of blocks in the drawing.

Roy Klein Gebbinck

If you want to write a Lisp function to create mtext entities from text files, there is no need for DCL dialogs. It is much easier, and more flexible, to create a folder structure on disk and rely on the (getfiled) function to browse and select the files.

But you can also try using rtext entities:
http://www.b-k-g.nl/bkg_rtext.html