JHEarcht Posted March 23, 2004 Share Posted March 23, 2004 VWA 10.5, Windows XP MY face is red! When I export VW files to DWG for clients, the Arial TrueType font becomes an AutoCAD stick font. The result is ugly and almost unreadable. VW often uses STYLE names in place of FAMILY names, so that may confuse the translator. However, in VW preferences "Arial Bold" shows "Arial" as a substitute font. So why does it turn into a stick font when opened in AutoCAD? Is there anything I can do to fix this? Is this a known bug? Thanks, JHE Quote Link to comment
Guest Posted March 23, 2004 Share Posted March 23, 2004 If the AutoCad person doens't have the font you are using, it will default to AC's default font. VectorWorks doesn't package fonts when it saves or exports. VW only uses fonts installed on the computer VW is running on, which are standard fonts. Since VW doesn't use specialized fonts unique to VW, it doesn't package the fonts. [ 03-23-2004, 08:51 AM: Message edited by: Katie ] Quote Link to comment
JHEarcht Posted March 23, 2004 Author Share Posted March 23, 2004 Katie, Thanks for the response. But the problem is not packaged fonts. As I understand it, the problem is that VW mis-labels the font, so AutoCAD can't find a match. I use ARIAL specifically because it is a common font on most computers. Are the programmers aware that VW has a problem with font names on Windows machines? Quote Link to comment
Guest Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 Are you on a Mac or PC? Quote Link to comment
JHEarcht Posted March 24, 2004 Author Share Posted March 24, 2004 VW 10.5, Windows XP, Dell Pentium 4 Katie, This is not a new problem. Since MiniCAD 7, some fonts have been labelled with a Style Name instead of a Family Name, i.e. ARIAL BOLD or ARIAL ITALIC instead of ARIAL. In VW it's not a significant problem until the file is exported to DWG with the wrong font label. Even when the recipient has ARIAL on his machine, AutoCAD is looking for a font family by the name of ARIAL BOLD. When the mis-labelled font is not found, AutoCAD substitues one of its default stick fonts. For that reason, I sometimes send a copy of the ARIAL font along with the file and ask the recipient to manually substitute it if the drawing is unreadable or just plain ugly. This is OK for engineers, but embarrassing for files sent to clients. So, as I understand it, the problem stems from VW's inability to distinguish between the font family and the font style. TrueType fonts often have seperate files for Font Styles. But MS Word only lists the Font Family in the font selector. It would be nice if VW would do the same. Thanks for your help. JE Quote Link to comment
Guest Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 I have a question - when you go to select Ariel as the font, is it letting you select Ariel or is the text defaulting to one of the other Ariel components. I have VW here and AutoCad, and I'm not seeing what you are saying is happenening. If you want to email a file to me to look at that is showing the symptoms of the problem, please do so. Katie@nemetschek.net Quote Link to comment
JHEarcht Posted March 24, 2004 Author Share Posted March 24, 2004 Katie, The scenario I described was true up thru VW9.5. I just checked and VW10.5 shows ARIAL in the list of fonts. In the past, I had to select ARIAL BOLD in order to get plain ARIAL. In any case, the recipients of my DWG export see AutoCAD Simplex (a poor match)instead of ARIAL, even tho they have ARIAL in their font folder. Ironically, ARIAL BLACK (a seperate font family) displays properly in AutoCAD. Based on past experience, I was just guessing that VW was mis-labelling the font. Can you find out what's really happening? I'll email a DWG file for you to look at. Quote Link to comment
katebjohnson Posted March 25, 2004 Share Posted March 25, 2004 I am also having problems exporting to ACAD, apparently due to fonts. It seems that ACAD doesn't even recognize my letters as a font. I have been using Comic sans and Geneva. Is there a prefered font? Quote Link to comment
Guest Posted March 26, 2004 Share Posted March 26, 2004 JHE - I'm working on your problem. THere is an explaination and a fix for your problem. Kate - are you on a mac? Quote Link to comment
katebjohnson Posted March 26, 2004 Share Posted March 26, 2004 Katie, Yes, OS 10.2.8 and VWA 10.5.0. Incidently, we seem to be having more problems with the ACAD 2004 than the prior version. Kate Quote Link to comment
Guest Posted March 26, 2004 Share Posted March 26, 2004 Kate, PC's dont have the two fonts listed. THe comic sans font on a PC is entirely different than the comic sans on the mac and it won't be found in most cases. Quote Link to comment
katebjohnson Posted March 26, 2004 Share Posted March 26, 2004 Katie, What font would be the best for me to export DWG's from my Mac to a PC using Autocad? Thank you, Kate Quote Link to comment
Guest Posted March 26, 2004 Share Posted March 26, 2004 Ariel is a font that is on both platforms and they are relatively close. You may need to correspond with the AutoCAD people to see what fonts they use and buy the mac version, or vice versa. Quote Link to comment
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