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Over 130 AutoCAD tips and tutorials! |
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AutoCAD Tips & Tutorials
Convert text to Mtext and vice versa
Text, also called single-line text, or Dtext, makes every line a separate object. It's great for short annotation in a drawing. On the other hand, Mtext, also called multiline text, has more formatting options, and is better for larger amounts of text. Mtext is especially important if you need to create left and right margins and wrap the text between those margins.
Sometimes, you have single-line text that should be multiline text, or vice versa. Here are two simple ways to convert between the two types of text.
From text to Mtext
To convert from text to Mtext, use the Express Tools command TXT2MTXT. Choose Express> Text> Convert Text to Mtext. (In AutoCAD 2009, click the Menu Browser first.)
At the Select objects: prompt, select the text objects that you want to convert. If you press Enter instead, you get the Text to MText Options dialog box. Set the options as you want and press OK. By default, the command sorts from the top object downward, and tries to word wrap the Mtext that it creates.
One nice feature of the command is that if you select text objects first, the command executes without further input -- very efficient! Another efficient feature is that the command does a true conversion; your old text objects are gone.
From Mtext to text
The easiest way that I found to convert Mtext to text is simply to copy and paste. Double-click the Mtext to open the Mtext editor. Select the text and copy to the clipboard. Then close the editor.
Start the DTEXT or TEXT command. Specify the start point, height and rotation angle as usual. You'll then see a small box and cursor. Paste from the clipboard and press Enter to end the command. You'll then need to delete your Mtext object.
Jimmy Bergmark reminded me that you can simply explode the Mtext. The difference is that you'll keep the line wrapping. It all depends on which result you want. A bonus is that you don't have to delete the original object.
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