Creating a Free Text  

This task explains how to create a text, with possible line wrapping. This text is assigned a frame of unlimited width, even though it may reach the frame boundary. You can set the properties of a text (anchor point, font size, justification, etc.) either before or after creating it.

You will learn how to perform the following operations:

Creating a Free Text 
Open the Brackets_views02.CATDrawing document.

  1. Click Text in the Annotations toolbar.
     

  2. Click where you want to insert the free text on the drawing. A green frame appears, as well as the Text Editor dialog box.

  3. If you want to specify the horizontal boundary of the text, drag the frame to where you want to place the boundary. If you want the horizontal boundary to adjust to your text, proceed with the following step.
     

  4. Type your text in the Text Editor dialog box: "free text", for example.
    Press Shift+Enter to add new line in the Text Editor if needed.
     

    The drawing is automatically updated with the text you are typing in the Text Editor dialog box.

    • You can copy text from another application and paste it into the Text Editor dialog box, and vice-versa. Note that the text layout and properties will not be preserved when copying/pasting. 
    • When copying/pasting an engineering symbol (such as φ Phi for example) in the text editor, note that the symbol is pasted as a plain character. As a result, if the symbol does not exist in the current font, the resulting character in the drawing may be different.
    • You cannot copy complex objects  (such as tables) from another application.

  5. When you are done typing your text, click OK in the Text Editor dialog box or press Enter to validate the text. Click anywhere on the drawing, or click any command. You can also click the Select icon : in this case, the text will remain selected so you can change its properties for example.
    You can now start setting the properties of the text you just created using the Text Properties toolbar.
     

 
Although you can create a text in a view that is not up-to-date, you cannot associate it to geometry. If you try to do so, a message appears, indicating that the selected or active view is not up-to-date.
 

Specifying Text Orientation

You can associate the text to an element and make it parallel to it. To do this, you can either:
  • Go to Tools > Options > Drafting > Annotation and Dress-Up tab and check Text check box, under Annotation Creation. From then on, any text you create after having selected an element will be automatically associated to this element.
  • When the above option is not activated, you can specify when you want to associate a text to an element. To do so, click Text and then press the Shift key while selecting the element you want the text to be associated to. You can then type your text.

You can also make the text vertical. To do this, click Text and then press the Alt key after selecting the position in the drawing where you want to create your free text.

You can align the text along a reference. To do this, click Text and then press the Ctrl key after selecting the position in the drawing where you want to create your free text.

When Create orientation link between the text and the reference option is selected in Tools > Options > Mechanical Design > Drafting > Annotation and Dress-Up tab, an orientation link is created during the text creation command. This option can be reversed by pressing Ctrl during reference selection. However, this option requires the snapping to be on, with a snapping mode that includes orientation snapping.
The Create orientation link between the text and the reference option is ignored in case of positioning an annotation on another annotation using an attachment point. In that case, the orientation link and the positional link are created automatically regardless of the value (selected or clear) of this option.

 

Positioning a Text on an Existing Text
  When creating a text, you can position it on an existing text using the attachment points. That is, you can snap annotation positions to any predefined location.

You can also position or associate a text on a dimension or a dimension line and automatically create an orientation and positional links. For more information, see Creating an Associated Text.
Create a text.

  1. Click Text in the Annotations toolbar.

  2. Move the pointer over the existing annotation.
    The attachment points are displayed.

    The nearest attachment point location is highlighted indicating that the annotation will be positioned on it if that point is selected. For more information about the attachment points, refer to Annotation Positioning.

  3. Click on a desired attachment point to position the text.
    An empty frame and the Text Editor dialog box appear.

  4. Enter the text in the Text Editor dialog box and click OK.
    The text is positioned at the selected attachment point of the reference text. Its angle is set to the same value as that of the reference text, and positional and orientation links are created between both annotations.

    The anchor point of the positioned text is set automatically so that the text is properly aligned with the reference text according to the attachment point.

    You can change the position of the text, if required.

  5. Click the text and drag to change its position.

    The annotation is snapped to the selected position and the attachment point is modified.