Font problems, one last try 1

[ttx]

Hi,
Before I completely give up, can someone explain to me why I am not able to set my .dtl file to the default font of my choice?
Whenever I try to change the default_font option in my .dtl file, I receive the message "Font index file romand.ndx was not found" I get this message regardless of what my config.pro option: pro_font_dir is set to and regardless of what True Type fonts have been moved where. I have tried just about everything I can think of.
As usual, the PTC documentation is a bit lacking.
The people who dreamed up the idea of building AutoCAD and SolidWorks on a native Windows platform....are brilliant.
(sorry for the rant)

Any help would be appreciated,

JW

 

[Hora]

Hello JW,

Glad to hear from you.

I set for my company a custom font similar with the once used by Catia V5.

STEP 1. To set your custom font (probably a true type) you must copy the desired font in the PROE\text folder. Please note that the real name of the font is NOT the name shown by windows ouside the FONT folder. Example: let's say our font is "Monospace 821 BT". If you copy the font out from the FONT folder, the font's name is monos.ttf.

STEP 2. Go to PROE\text\usascii folder and create an .ndx file (ex: myfont.ndx - or just copy an existent one and rename it)

STEP 3. Edit the myfont.ndx file with notepad or wordpad and add/modify the file as shown below:

monos.ttf
special.fnt

You must include the SPECIAL.FNT font in your .ndx file, otherwise all special characters as "diameter", "centerline", "degree" etc, etc and ALL geometry tolerances will not be displayed properly.

STEP 4. Edit your .dtl file and replace the "font" with "myfont". Save it.

That's all.

Good luck,
-Hora

 

[ttx]

Thanks Hora,
Wow! How did you ever crack the code on that Pro/E paradox?
I did expect that the key was somehow in the .ndx file - but that was as far as I got.
I am going to go through your explanation carefully this morning - we will see what happens.
Sometimes it is satisfying to customize Pro/E, as it is at a higher level in terms of complexity. Being the CAD administrator and being asked to solve a font problem......let's just say that after a couple of hours I was a little less than satisfied.

Thanks again for your help - very much appreciated!

 

[Hora]

JW,

You're welcome. Let me know if you set the font. Should work without problem.

-Hora

 

[ttx]

Hi Hora,
Well, I got half way there....
Pro/E know recognizes the new .ndx file however, after setting this to the default for drawing, the font does not appear....?
The font type that I want is available in the drop-down list.
Here is what I have:

I copied all of the ttf fonts into the Pro/E text folder.

config.pro: pro_font_dir = C:\ptc\Proe2001\text

.dtl: default_font = companyx.ndx

The contents of the .ndx are as follows:

special.fnt romand__.ttf

Any suggestions?

Thx

JW

 

[Hora]

Hi JW,

The contents of the .ndx is like this?
special.fnt romand__.ttf

or like this?
special.fnt
romand__.ttf

I suggest you to create two lines, not a single line and put your font first. See below:
romand__.ttf
special.fnt

The old drawings will not recognise the new font because all dtl settings were saved with the drawing. You must load the .dtl file for each drawing and refresh the pages.

How about for the new drawings?

Maybe less important, but with ProE you never know, I don't like "__" of "romand__.ttf" font. Can you change it to "romand.ttf"?

Please keep me in touch solve this issue.

-Hora

 

[ttx]

Hi Hora,
I tried your suggestions with regard to the order of text in the .ndx file. It looks like that did it! Thanks.
I am surprised that this topic hasn't come up before. There must be a lot of other Pro/E companies that would rather not use ascii text on drawings.
You might consider re-posting your solution as a helpful tip.

Thanks again.

JW