Michael’s Corner

Michael's Corner is a monthly publication written by Michael E. Beall, Autodesk Authorized Author and peripatetic AutoCAD trainer. Michael travels all over the USA, bringing his fantastic experience and great understanding of AutoCAD to his clients. Michael's Corner brings together many of the tips, tricks and methods developed during these training sessions for the benefit of all users.

Michael's Corner provides something for every AutoCAD user. Every month, a number of articles cover a wide range of topics, suitable for users at all levels, including "The Basics" for those just starting out. Essentially, the aim of Michael's Corner is to help all AutoCAD users work smarter and faster.

This month…

From the Vault

Originally published May 2010

Multiline Text

I was quite amazed to discover that, over the last 7+ years, I had not covered Multiline Text. My humble apologies. There are lots of powerful features in this command, so this may take another month or two to cover properly.

Multiline Text (Mtext) is what you would use for construction notes, specifications, or any body of text that would be in paragraph form.

How to Add Multiline Text to the Drawing

1. Set the desired layer and text style.

2. On the Home tabAnnotation panel, click Multiline Text.

3. Specify the first corner of the Mtext box. After specifying the first corner, the option string is displayed:

   Specify opposite corner or [Height/Justify/Line
   	spacing/Rotation/Style/Width/Columns]:

4. To change the height, enter H, then enter the desired height for the Mtext.

5. After you specify the opposite corner of the Mtext box, you will see the Mtext Editor window and the Text Editor contextual tab state.

Note: With the introduction of the Text Editor contextual tab state, the Text Formatting toolbar is disabled by default. All the features from the Text Formatting toolbar are available on the Text Editor tab.

Mtext Editor Shortcut Menu Features

Right-click in the text area of the Mtext window and you get a shortcut menu.

Editor Settings

There are a few things you may be interested in on the Editor Settings shortcut menu.

• Always Display as WYSIWYG ("What You See Is What You Get") When you double-click an Mtext object to edit it, you may have encountered a situation where the Mtext Editor fills the screen in an effort to ‘help you’ see the text. This is usually the case when you have double-clicked on Mtext that is relatively small in the drawing area. Check this feature to have the editor open without enlarging itself to show the text in a magnified window.

  Note: The ‘Always Display as WYSIWYG’ is the shortcut menu equivalent to the variable MTEXTFIXED found in Michael's Corner, November 2009.

• Show Toolbar Although I think you will easily adapt to the Text Editor tab, if you want to display the former Text Formatting toolbar, check Show Toolbar.

  

• Opaque Background If the Mtext editor window opens ‘over’ other objects in the drawing, it may be difficult to see the text in the editor, as shown in the first illustration. Check Opaque Background to suppress the default see-through condition of the editor window.

  

More Mtext insights next month!

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