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Fonts don't export to DWG


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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

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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 ]

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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?

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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

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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

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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.

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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.

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