Learn how to correctly adjust the size and positioning of text and M leaders in your architectural design details. This article provides a detailed step-by-step guide on how to ensure your text and M leaders align perfectly with your design scale for a professional and clear presentation.
Key Insights
- The size of the text in a design detail should be properly adjusted considering the scale factor of the title block. This helps in ensuring consistency and clarity in the details presented.
- M leaders, which point out certain aspects of the design, should be logically and appropriately positioned. This ensures that they do not interfere with the overall presentation and understanding of the design.
- It is crucial to adjust the line type scale factor in your drawing to match the scale of the title block. This helps in maintaining the integrity and correctness of the design details.
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Well, let's slow down for a second and look at our detail. We see that we have what will become our M Leaders pointing to things. And I can see that, for example, this row of text wants to point horizontally to this entity.
And I'm just sort of looking at where I'm going to go in the future, as far as where the text needs to be to best document what's going on. Something doesn't quite feel right, though. When I look at this text down here, this text looks a lot larger than that text.
So I'm going to double-click on the text and select it all. And you can see that the text height is three-quarters of an inch. I'm just going to choose Close Text Editor.
I'm going to list the title block. The title block has a scale factor of eight. So what I really need to do is to go back into the text and change it so that it will be an eighth of an inch high.
Because it appears to me that instead of being an eighth of an inch high—I've just hit Escape—instead of being an eighth of an inch high, the text is actually three thirty-seconds of an inch. Because three thirty-seconds times the scale factor of eight would give us the text size that we just saw.
So I'm going to double-click, select the text, give it a height of an inch, and then close the editor. For right now, I'm going to say move the text, arbitrary point, Ortho on, arbitrary point. Double-click this text, select it, give it a height of an inch, and go Close Text Editor.
Move this up more; again, Ortho is on. Double-click this text, give it a height of an inch, double-click this, zoom in, give it a height of an inch. Down here, double-click, select, and give it a height of an inch.
Escape, close the editor. Now I can see there are some changes I need to make. I need to make sure that my text is in a logical location.
One nice thing is the text is now Mtext. I select the text; I'm going to say go perpendicular to here, hit Escape, select the text, go from the grip, perpendicular to there, hit Escape, select the text, choose the grip, say perpendicular to here, hit Escape, select the text, go perpendicular to there, Control+S to save. Now I have my nodes that I have to connect up to.
I'm going to zoom in closely, Format, Point Style, I will make it PD mode 3. I'll back out, RE for Regen, I'll zoom in really closely, RE for Regen. So move the text; I'm typing insertion, I pick slightly off of the text to the node here. This appears to read too contiguously, so move the text from the insertion point of the text.
Again, you pick off of the text. I'm going to say go down to the node of here. I'm going to go down one more.
Move the text from the insertion point of the text to the node of here. I'm going to see what I'm going to do down here. The grips are already correctly selected.
Move the text from the insertion point of the text to the node of here. Move this text from the insertion base point of the text to the node of there. Back off, Control+S to save.
We have our text the correct size. Now let's work on our M Leaders. Let's go to the Annotate ribbon, Multileader.
I'm going to go into the properties over here, take M Leader 48, do a right button and rename it as M Leader 08. Make it current. Let's modify it.
Let's make our text height eighth of an inch. We're not going to be using it, but we'll just keep it that way. Leader structure, our scale factor wants to be eight.
Again, this factor relates to the size of the title block that we brought in. Leader format, I'd like to have it straight. OK, close, Control+S to save.
I'm now going to zoom in. I'm going to use my M Leader command itself. I'm going to say Nearest to here.
I'm going to back off. I'm going to turn my Polar OSNAP on. Turn Ortho off.
I'm going to pan up. Again, I want it to be 30 degrees off of vertical. I'm reading it until it says 60 degrees.
Put Ortho on, F8. I'll just pick, close the text editor. I'm on the wrong layer.
Match properties here to this. Go into Layers. Go back and make my current layer A Text.
Pan around. Go to Annotate, M Leader. I'm now going to go to the gypboard.
I'm going to say Nearest to here. Again, make sure I'm 30 degrees off vertical. Move down so it bisects the text.
I'll pick here. F8 to get Ortho on. I'm going to pick and I will close the text editor.
Control+S to save. I'm going to delete out these previously existing leaders. Go back to M Leader.
I'm going to point to the stud. Come down vertically. Now, check this out.
Do you see my arrowhead? Do you see the length of the initial M Leader segment? If that segment is not long enough, the arrowhead will not appear. F8 to turn Ortho off. I can press this icon or I could press the F10 key.
Again, vertical, 270. Once you go to 300, I pick. I go over.
I close the editor. I'm going to erase this. The insulation, you can see the insulation line type right there.
If I type in LTS for line type scale, you can see that the drawing right now has a scale factor of 1. It wants to have a scale factor of 8. Now, you can see that the batt insulation increased in size. M Leader from here. My Polar OSNAP is on.
Down to 270. Go over to let it say 300. Position the horizontal so it bisects the text.
Pick. Close the editor. Erase this.
And then we have information about the nails. I'll erase this right now. M Leader.
I'm going to say Nearest to here. Go down. Over to 300.
Bisect the text. Pick. Pick.
Close the editor. Control+S to save. I'm going to change my point style back to PD mode.
So, Format, Point Style. I'm going to choose the zero value. Zoom back a bit.
Draw a line from the node of here. Ortho on, F8.
Straight down. Move last. Little bit to the left.
Start zooming in. Pick on the grips. Slide that one to the left.
The arrow, go perpendicular to here. Pick on this grip right here.
Drag it to the left. On the arrow, perpendicular to here.
Escape. Back off. Pick on the grip.
Pick on the arrow, perpendicular to here. We're almost there.
Pick on the grip, pick on the arrow, perpendicular to here.
And pick on the leader. Pick on the grip, pick on the arrow.
Perpendicular to here. Erase. Zoom Extents.
And save the file. So, we've completed everything. Good going.
Our text is the right size for the scale. The M Leaders have been adjusted. The leaders all end in a logical location.
And we've also changed the line type scale factor of the drawing to match the scale of the title block. So, I hope you're having fun. And let's get working on our next detail.