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Drawing fonts

ankarl

New member
When using the standard Pro/E font "font" some of the charachters looks the same, e.g 1 I and l displays as lll. This becomes a problem when a part no or a description is alphanumerical.


Our quick fix to this was to change to a true type font. Looks great but slows everything down. Graphics performance decreases and plotfiles grow approx 3x
(so does PDF's as well)


Any one with a better idea of how to solve this?
PTC is ofcource not prepared to change the font since it would have impact on all customers.


Appreciate any suggestions.


thanks


/Anders
Edited by: ankarl
 
Thx, but thats what we done. Using windows fonts (true-type) is the reason for the decreased performance.
 
Gave up on using windows fonts finally....
Some of the drawings became so big that they crashed, (some of the guys here put in huge hole chart tables and there is obviously a limit that they passed).


I decompiled the proe standard font, changed it and compiled it again.
Now everything looks ok and performance is back.


Have I done something stupid nowand having some other problems coming?
Anyone with any experiences?


regards
/Anders
Edited by: ankarl
 
Modifying the Pro/E font sounds like a good solution, I would be interested in your modified font. Care to post it?

We have a standard policy, from long before CAD came along, to never use the letters I, O or Q in a part number, we also use all capital letters so 1 and L can not be confused. I have the alphabet printed out with * in place of the forbidden letters stuck across the top of my monitor just to remind me that J follows H etc.

I personally like the AutoCAD simplex font better than the Pro/E "font". It looks a lot better than "font" and is an equally spaced font so it is easy to get things lined up, unlike true type fonts with variable kearning. Any chance you could decompile it and convert to Pro/E? I have tried the get PTC to improve on "font" since Pro/DETAIL was released. It looks like a 5 year old created it.
 
Couldnt agree more with you doc, the Pro/E font is ugly....
(I've also tried with PTC but noooo.....)


Converting the simplex font is a good idea, might have a look at that when I have some apre time.
Remember from school, making some special charachters, AutoCad fonts are made with more complex entities. Pro/E use only line segments but in AutoCad you also have arcs and circles which give a better result.


The modified file is here:


2005-03-04_012426_font.zip


2005-03-04_012752_latin_1.zip


the .fnt is the compiled file and the .src is readable in any text editor
The modification of latin_1 affects swedish charachters only.


regards
Anders



Edited by: ankarl
 
I mean, there is already a ascii.fnt file in the folder .../proeWildfire2.0/text/ but I do not see ascii when I want to select a font. How can I manage to see it?
 
Old one poping up...


Back-up your existing files and replace with the new ones in the zip-file.


They affect the standard Pro/E font called "font", it is a modification and not a new font.


regards


Anders
 
So If I just put the files in a folder called by the config.pro through pro_font_dir, they will kinda be in conflict with the ones in .../text/ folder?
 
If you want this to be a unique font you will have to create an auxillary font based on the new files, check the manual of how to do it.


Otherwise, just replace the existing files in the /text folder with the new.
 
Ankarl,


First off thank you for posting your modified fonts. I too have been plagued by this ridiculous font issue.


Could you please explain what to do with the 2 files (ascii.fnt & ascii.src) once I have unzipped them?


I am doing something wrong because when I tried to utilize them, they came thru as bold, True Type style.


I'd appreciate it if you could give some detailed instructions on what to do with the 2 files.


Thanks again.
 
It is late to answer, I know, but to answer the original question:
"When using the standard Pro/E font "font" some of the charachters looks the same, e.g 1 I and l displays as lll. This becomes a problem when a part no or a description is alphanumerical."

I use proe font Isofont, which is not a truetype font, and where 1 and I are not graphically identical.
 
ankarl said:
Couldnt agree more with you doc, the Pro/E font is ugly....
(I've also tried with PTC but noooo.....)


Converting the simplex font is a good idea, might have a look at that when I have some apre time.
Remember from school, making some special charachters, AutoCad fonts are made with more complex entities. Pro/E use only line segments but in AutoCad you also have arcs and circles which give a better result.


The modified file is here:


2005-03-04_012426_font.zip


2005-03-04_012752_latin_1.zip


the .fnt is the compiled file and the .src is readable in any text editor
The modification of latin_1 affects swedish charachters only.


regards
Anders

Thanks for posting those!!!!!!!!!

Works great. Are 1 & I the only changed characters? The only problem I see is I have to remember to load them into each Pro/E each time I load a new build (seems to happen a lot, i have about 5 builds loaded right now). PTC should make the change themselves.

Would you mind if I submitted your fonts to PTC as an enhancement request? If a hundred people submit it PTC might implement it by next decade.
 
Submit if you like Doc.


I did it in 2004, this was the answer from PTC:


"PTC does not plan to implement this enhancement at this time. Changing the general, default Pro/E font would have serious impact on a very large number of customers."


Changed only 1 and I in ascii.fnt
Changed some special swedish characters in latin_1


Good luck
/Anders
 

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