CAD Forum - tips, tricks, discussion and utilities for AutoCAD, Inventor, Revit and other Autodesk products [www.cadforum.cz]

ARKANCE | CONTACT - CZ | SK | EN | DE

New CADforum look launched.
Over 1.090.000 registered users (EN+CZ). AutoCAD tips, Inventor tips, Revit tips. Try the new Engineering calculator. New AutoCAD 2026 commands and variables.

CAD tip # 8640:

Question

CAD

% platform category

Text formatting codes in MText objects.

Paragraph texts in AutoCAD can contain control codes which influence appearance of the text. These formatting control codes are automatically inserted in the internal MText editor. But if you edit your texts with an alternative editor (e.g. Notepad), or if you generate them programmatically, you can use these codes to format your paragraph texts.

Code Function

\L Start underline

\l Stop underline

\O Start overstrike

\o Stop overstrike

\K Start strike-through

\k Stop strike-through

\N New column

\P New paragraph (new line)

\pi \pxi \pxt \pxq

Control codes for bullets, numbered paragraphs, tab stops and columns - e.g. bullets: \pxi-3,l3,t3;, tab stops: \pxt10,t12; (l=left offset, t=tab spacing), justification: \pxql;=left, \pxqr;=right, \pxqc;=center, \pxqj;=block-justified, \pxqd;=distributed

example:

\pxi2,l0.8,r3.2,b0.3948,a0.2616,se0.492;=indent first 2 lines of the paragraph from left/right, spacing before and after the paragraph, line spacing exactly (e) or multiples of (m) the given value (values always in inches)

\X Paragraph wrap on the dimension line (only in dimensions)

\Q Slanting (obliquing) text by angle - e.g. \Q30;

\H Text height - e.g. \H3x;

\W Text width - e.g. \W0.8x;

Font selection

e.g. \Fgdt;o - GDT-tolerance
e.g. \Fkroeger|b0|i0|c238|p10 - font Kroeger, non-bold, non-italic, codepage 238, pitch 10

Stacking, fractions

e.g. \SA^B:
A
B
e.g. \SX/Y:
X
Y
e.g. \S1#4:
¼

Alignment

\A0; = bottom
\A1; = center
\A2; = top

Color change (ACI colors)

\C1; = red
\C2; = yellow
\C3; = green
\C4; = cyan
\C5; = blue
\C6; = magenta
\C7; = white

You can also use \c and a combination of ACI color index and truecolor long code or color book (see color converter) - like this:

\C113;\c10601021; = greenish

\T Tracking, char.spacing - e.g. \T2;

\~ Non-wrapping space, hard space

{} Braces - define the text area influenced by the code

\ Escape character - e.g. \\ = "\", \{ = "{"

Codes and braces can be nested up to 8 levels deep. Formatting codes can be removed via the context menu in the MText editor.

ACADACLT

*CAD

21.5.2012 107770× FAQ

Comments Tell a friend

applies to: AutoCAD · AutoCAD LT ·

See also:
Tip 14446:	Undocumented options in AutoCAD FIELDs - hyperlinks, hexadecimal or binary format
Tip 14163:	How to select DWG texts containing a certain number of characters?
Tip 14063:	How to get week day and week number from a given date.
Tip 13971:	What do geolocation codes like 8FWPXFCF+82 or 33UVQ61402434 mean?
Tip 13737:	Formatting leading zeros in AutoCAD fields (and automatic field update).

Selected tip: Problem printing drawings with raster files from VoloView/VoloPlot.

Back All CAD Tips

Setting scale for documentation views in AutoCAD. « | » GIS performance analysis in Autodesk Infrastructure Map Server.

Have we helped you? If you want to support the CAD Forum web service, consider buying one of our CAD applications, or our custom software development offerings, or donating via PayPal (see above). You may also add a link to your web - like this "fan" link:

Text:

FAQ

Featuring:
Publish interactive 3D PDF models from AutoCAD, Inventor or Revit with Share3D More info

Please use these tips at your own risk.
ARKANCE is not responsible for possible problems that may occur as a result of using any of these tips.

CADforum

Tips, tricks, utilities, help, how-tos and FAQ for AutoCAD, LT, Inventor, Revit, Map, Civil 3D, Fusion, Forma, 3ds Max and other Autodesk software (community support by ARKANCE). See About CADforum.

ARKANCE CZ (CAD Studio) - Autodesk Platinum Partner & Training Center & Consulting Services Partner

CONTACT:
webmaster.cz@arkance.world | tel. +420 910 970 111



Visitors now: 7365