Add fonts

[michael john williams]

Just upgraded from 2008 to 2009. SO far installation has ok but how do you add a font to VW. Remeber having this problem before when upgrading as our typeface is not in VW and we had to add the font some how.....but I have forgotton how to do it and searched in help and here and can not find the answer.

Any assisatnce appreciated.

[Jeffrey W Ouellette]

VW simply uses any system fonts. Add to it your system, it should be available to VW.

[michael john williams]

Actually I think the fonts are there, as they appear in the font choice - avant garde - which is used in our title block but on opening 2008 files VW wants to change it to aerial...but I want to keep my original type face, especially in title blocks.

Also the font only looks like the font you want to use when typing and when you come out of the text it changes to something else and becomes 'furry' / not as sharp. Perhaps some setting needs doing.

[Benson Shaw]

I have an Avant Garde font which I have carried from some old Mac system (8.5?). I think it is an Adobe TruType, but the copyright is Apple 1992. When Apple stopped including Avant Garde in the bundled system fonts, I copied it from my old system folder to my OS10.xx User>Library>Fonts folder. It stayed with me in each upgrade (Archive & Install) and new computer without any special action. A copy of this font does not reside in my System>Library>Fonts folder.

VW accesses this font without problem. However, it often gets mapped to Geneva or that other Swiss san serif font in exported docs.

-B

[michael john williams]

Yah, as I say I think its there now, but will watch out if it tries to replace it. But the text in the drawing stills looks fuzzy and does not appear like the font you have selected for the text until you click actually on the text and and it changes and you see what font it is. By the way we bought avant garde some years back so we have rights to use it.

[Ray Libby]

Do you have Anti-aliasing turned on?

A screen shot would really help.

[michael john williams]

That helped. Thanks. The advant garde light is still not seen as light but that is only one word in our titleblock and I can live with that as all the other text is nice and crisp.

However NNA had told me to turn off GDI to help get rid of my screen flicker problem which I hope has been soreted and does not materialise on 2009.

While I am at it is there a way of seeing the true thiknesses of the lines, ie 1.3. 1.8, etc.

[Ray Libby]

Vectorworks Preferences>Display tab>Zoom line thickness

[Pat Stanford]

While I am at it is there a way of seeing the true thiknesses of the lines, ie 1.3. 1.8, etc.

Depends on what you mean.

1. You can set your line thicknesses to be displayed as Points, Mils or MM. Change this setting under Tools:Options:Line Thicknesses.

2. If you just want to see the relative line thicknesses as you zoom in, turn on the Zoom Line Thicknesses.

3. If you want to be able to see the difference between different lines at a set zoom, then the answer may be no. Your screen has a dot pitch of something like 100 pixels per inch (3.9 pixels per mm. Let's round that to 4 to make the math easier). At 0.25 mm/pixel, you will not be able to see any difference in line thicknesses at 100% zoom unless the difference between the thickness is at least 0.25 mm. And at very thin lines, there will likely be a lot of thicknesses that show exactly the same. Depending on exactly how VW rounds, these may not be exact, but will give you the idea:

0mm to 0.375 mm will show as 1 pixel.

0.376 to 0.625 mm will show as 2 pixels.

0.626 to 0.875 mm will show as 3 pixels.

etc.

These calcs are only exact for horizontal and vertical lines. The math gets harder for diagonals.

And internally, VW (at least VectorScript) seems to keep all the line thicknesses as points and convert the Mil and MM settings to the closest equivalent. Because of this, it may not be possible (at least with VS) to set every line thickness.

[Pat Stanford]

I have an Avant Garde font which I have carried from some old Mac system (8.5?). I think it is an Adobe TruType, but the copyright is Apple 1992.

Font technologies have changed and continue to change. If you are really using a 17 year old font, I am not surprised that you might be having problems.

It may be time to pay for a current version that should last you another 17 years.

[Benson Shaw]

Thanks, Pat, but I am not experiencing any font problems within VW2009. I posted my user experience to assure MJW that Avant Garde, at least the one I am using, is accessible by VW from my user account font library. Seems his trouble is with prefs rather than the font itself.

Some of my transmitted Avant Garde text blocks, especially dwg exports, may get mapped to other fonts by recipients who do not include AG in their font libraries.

I think it is amazing that the old font still works! I am disappointed that Apple dropped AG from the bundled system font list. I like the lower case "a" and the general compactness of Avant Garde.

-B

[michael john williams]

Why does it say 'slow' after zomm line thickness?

How come the line thicknesses do not show on viewports and you get 'flat' drawings with no depth?

Trying to set up the new master template for 2009 and just want to start again and get the basics right. I will have to do the same again in a few weeks for 2010!

[brudgers]

Calculating line thicknesses based on vantage point is a complex rendering operation.

It's somewhat analogous to rendering an object in 3d.

That's the reason for the warning.

You might get real time response, but you might not.

[Kool Aid]

Why does it say 'slow' after zomm line thickness?

Because it can be slow. Used to be always, but still is when you have ten, twenty or so thousand objects.

Mr. Brugers believes that this is about distances and why not: in elevations and sections it well and truly should be.

Overall it is not and definitely not template-related, but a general preference across all files.

There is, in public domain, a menu command for toggling this.