Change Length of Tabstop

Franz Di
Franz Di
in Other
 Can I change the length of a tabstop in an MTEXT object, similar to MS Word or MTEXT objects in AutoCAD?

Comments

  • Franz Di
    Franz Di
    I saw that the feature was added in v15. Is it also possible somehow in v14?
  • Roy Klein Gebbinck
    Roy Klein Gebbinck
    You can use an external editor to edit mtexts (change MTEXTED). In the external editor look for '\p...;' sequences (lower case 'p'). That is how tabstops are formatted. I don't have more details though and have yet to come across documentation regarding the '\p' format code.

    Links:
    http://www.cadforum.cz/cadforum_en/text-formatting-codes-in-mtext-objects-tip8640
    http://docs.autodesk.com/ACD/2014/ENU/files/GUID-7D8BB40F-5C4E-4AE5-BD75-9ED7112E5967.htm
  • Roy Klein Gebbinck
    Roy Klein Gebbinck
    @ Franz: Can you please give some feedback. Have you managed to change the tab stops in V14? And if so, how?
  • Franz Di
    Franz Di
     No, I did not manage to change the length of tabstops. I know how to insert tab stops of course. I was looking for the ruler function like they have it in AutoCAD, or apparently in Bricscad v15.
    As it does not seem to be possible, we work around it with multiple mtext objects.
  • Joe Dunfee
    Joe Dunfee
    Before tabs were possible, there were a few approaches that was used for AutoCAD. 

    One way to perhaps implement what you need is to change to a mono-space font, such as the simplex font.  Then, it is possible to line columns up.  A table might be another approach. For things like numbered lists, I often have a column of text for the numbers. They must be the same font and font size for the rows to line up.

    -Joe
  • Roy Klein Gebbinck
    Roy Klein Gebbinck
    Actually the method I tried to describe in post #3 works just fine but I wrongly assumed that Franz was trying to edit an mtext with existing tab settings.

    Additional info (after a quick test with V16):
    The default tabs are 4 wide (at position 4, 8, 12 etc.).
    To get smaller tabs you can use the external editor and add something like this at the start of the first line:
    [code]\pxt3,6,9;[/code]
    Once the tab settings are in place you can switch back to the built-in mtext editor.
  • Jason Bourhill
    Jason Bourhill
    You can set tab stops graphically from the ruler. This was introduced for MTEXT with V15, and can be toggled on/off by picking the ruler icon in the editor.

    To set a tab stop, left click somewhere on the ruler. Right click on an existing tab stop to remove. You can change the tab type (left, center, right) by picking on the tab icon at the left end of the ruler. The ruler also allows you to change indent.

    With V16 there is now support for columns in mtext.

    Regards, Jason Bourhill CAD Concepts
    imageMTEXT_Ruler.png
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