How to remove non-standard text styles with the AutoCAD Standards Manager

Rogue Fonts, non standard Line Types and custom Hatches. If you are a CAD manager, doesn’t this just boil your blood?

Well – calm down! This weeks guest post from the wonderful Sam Lucido takes you through an easy way to remove non standard fonts from your AutoCAD DWGs, using a surprisingly underused tool.

If you would like to write a guest post for CSO – click here.

Over to you Sam.

Standardize those text styles in AutoCAD.

Have you ever opened up a drawing and you have fonts, fonts, everywhere? Names of fonts and text sizes where you have no idea where they came from or they cannot be purged due to an object, linetype or some random AutoCAD feature that is holding on to it?

This is where the AutoCAD Standards Manager comes to the rescue.

Related : Removing non-standard Line types with the AutoCAD Standards manager

Figure 1 shows a drawing received from a client and the fonts do not conform to our company standard. We have several imported from Microstation and others we are not sure what they are referencing.

Figure 1: Text Styles from outside source

Figure 2 shows a template file which includes the fonts we want to use.  Good CAD practice tells us that we need to clean those up to our standard.  Let’s take a quick look at how to use the AutoCAD standards manager to clean those up.

Figure 2: My Company Standard Text Styles.

On the Manage tab of the Ribbon navigate to the CAD Standards Panel as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Manage Tab on the Ribbon

The first thing we need to do is Configure the standards manager to check for fonts, comparing our template to the one we received from the client.

Open up your template file and create a standards file from that file as shown in Figure 4.

Save in the same location as your drawing file or make a folder named CAD Standard in the project folder and save in that location. We want to be able to revisit that file later if necessary.

Figure 4:  Save the standards file.

Next open up the drawing that contains the fonts you wish to replace

Note: You need to be in the drawing to check the standards.

In the Configure Standards Window under the Standards tab select the marker and add in the .dws file you just created.

Figure 5: Add the template file

Once the file has been loaded into our drawing navigate from the Standard Tab to the Plug-ins tab and uncheck all but the text styles as shown in Figure 6 below.

Figure 6: The Plug-ins Tab

Now we are ready to run our check and change those fonts.  Select Check Standards and you will have several steps to review/and/or complete.

1. The problem font. The AutoCAD Standards Manager will display the font name and the problem.
2. What font you would like to replace that with? Remember you are reading from the template file you created. If you have additional fonts you would like to use simply add that to your template file prior to creating the standards file.
3. The AutoCADstandards Manager will give you a preview of the changes. Take a look to make sure this is what you need and/or want for your particular design or drawing.
4. Lastly, select fix then close the standard manager.

This is just one basic function of the AutoCAD standards manager. You also have the ability to change the settings and also mark this as ignored. If you are a CAD Manager you may want to ignore one font for some particular reason and/or client request overriding your current standard.

Figure 7:  Fix those text styles.

The last thing I like to do is go back to the standards manager and remove the standards file from the drawing. This drawing was just a base so we do not have to monitor it throughout the project. Simply select the maker as shown to remove the file.

Figure 8: Remove the Standards File.

As a CAD Manager I load and unload standards files to check work from my team. This is a great way to provide feedback and to catch those little things that can be missed during the busy design phase of a project.  The AutoCAD standards manager can help you check, correct, and maintain standards within your company.

Thanks very much to Sam for this excellent Article.

Do you have another use for the the Standards Manager? Leave a comment below!