CONVERTING SINGLE LINE TEXT TO MULTILINE TEXT BOX

[ASydDesigns]

Can multiple single line text be combined into one multiline text box?

[GregG]

I copy and paste to Word and back to VW. Must be a simpler way....

We get to deal with it often when importing AutoCAD drawings.

[Jesse Cogswell]

I wrote up a quick little script that will do this for you.  It requires that you have more than one Text object to be selected.  When the script is run, it will create a database of all currently selected Text boxes within the current parent container (Group, Symbol, Viewport Annotation, or Layer), sort them by Y dimension, and then add the contents of the Text boxes to the top-most Text box and delete the originals.

 

Test Objects:

 

Resulting Text Box:

 

Keep in mind that the resulting multi-line Text object will have the same formatting as the original top-most Text object, the other Text objects' formatting will be forgotten.  This includes things like Wrap Text and Width.

 

Normally I would just post the code itself since it's so simple, but because it uses the dreaded combination of characters to add the carriage return, I've instead just attached the menu command .vsm itself.  Installation instructions are as follows:

1. Download the attached Combine Text Boxes.vsm file
2. Place file within your User Folder in the Plug-ins folder
   1. To easily get to this, open up your Vectorworks Preferences
   2. Go to the User Folder tab
   3. Click on the Explore button (Windows), or Open in Finder button (Mac)
3. Restart Vectorworks
4. Once restarted, you will need to add the script to your workspace.
5. Go to Tools - Workspaces - Edit Current Workspace
6. Select the Menus tab
7. In the box on the left, navigate to and expand the JNC category
8. In the box on the right, find a menu you'd like the command to be placed in, such as Modify or Tools or Text
9. Click and drag the Combine Text Boxes command from the box on the left to the desired menu in the box on the right.
10. Click OK to accept the changes and close the Workspace Editor.

Let me know if you have any trouble getting this to work or if is produces unexpected results.

 

Combine Text Boxes.vsm