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CAD tip CAD tip # 7481:

   
Question CAD 
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Q - question

Dotted and arrow linetypes.

A - answer Besides the standard dashed linetypes and complex linetypes using shapes, AutoCAD allows to create custom linetypes using texts. These texts don't need to be neccessarily only letters and numbers - you can also use symbols.

Symbols are contained in most fonts and you can access them through Unicode codes. But you need to use a "rich" font containing the requested symbol. The Truetype font Arial (Arial.ttf) is one of such fonts - and Arial is the default font used in the predefined style "Standard" in newer versions of AutoCAD. So we can avoid referring a specific style in the linetype definition, and first of all avoid creating the specific style in all drawings which should use the newly defined linetype.

Examples of such symbol linetypes are these dotted (spotted) and arrow-type linetypes:

Text/symbol linetypes

The definitions of the displayed linetypes follow (metric units):
*DOTS,Dots .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  
A,.000001,-3,["\U+25CF",Standard,S=3,R=0,X=-1.25,Y=-1.25],-3
*DOTS1,Dots1 .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 
A,.000001,-3,["\U+2022",Standard,S=3,R=0,X=-1.44,Y=-1.44],-1.7
*ARROW,Arrow1  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  
A,.000001,-3,["\U+25BA",Standard,S=3,R=0,X=-1.35,Y=-1.35],.000001,-4

You can also download it HERE

You can add these definitions to your ACADISO.LIN (or ACAD.LIN) file, or you can save them to a separate LIN file. You can load a .LIN file into an AutoCAD DWG drawing with the LINETYPE command.

The spacing between symbols is controlled by the negative values in the definition. The symbol size is controlled by the linetype scale property. The small dots between symbols are neccessary as the linetype definition must start with a full line segment.

We recommend to use the "Linetype generation" property for polylines (PLINEGEN=1).

ACADLT
100% *  CAD 
28.7.2010    62374×  
Prices - CAD eShop:
applies to: AutoCAD · AutoCAD LT ·

See also:
Tip 14039:How to display the total volume or surface of 3D solids in DWG?
Tip 13878:SelectSimilar - extended selections for AutoCAD, incl. LT and Web versions
Tip 13450:How to create a complex line type with text always upside down?
Tip 12837:RenameCSV - rename layers, blocks, layouts, views, linetypes using Excel tables
Tip 12475:Mysterious text rotation when editing.


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