by Martin Phelps
General practice is to use “Multiline Text” instead of “Single Line Text”, since “Multiline text” gives the user more flexibility and more options.
“Single Line Text” may have been created in older or legacy drawing files and to give that greater functionality can be converted to “Mtext”.
This tool is only available in full AutoCAD and unfortunately not in AutoCAD LT 2024 and earlier, however there is a solution to bring this tool into AutoCAD LT, see later Blog.
In the “Express Tools” tab, (which is only available in the full version of AutoCAD), in the “Text” panel, there is a command “Convert to Mtext”, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Alternatively, the command can be accessed by typing “TXT2MTXT”.
As the name of the command suggests, it simply converts or combines “Single Line Text” items to “Multiline Text” objects.
To convert “Single Line Text” items to “Multiline Text” objects, access the “Convert to Mtext” command, select the lines of “Single Line Text”, and press enter.
The “Single Line Text” has now been converted to “Multiline Text”.
The “Single Line Text” properties, for example text height, font and colour are retained, Figure 2 shows the text as “Single Line”, each line of text is shown with its blue grip at its insertion point.
Figure 2.
By default, after conversion the text is now as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Note: - Spacing is ignored.
Since the text is now “Multiline Text”, to add the “Spacings etc.,” double click on the now “Multiline text” and use the text editor as in Figure 4.
Figure 4.
To standardise, the “Text Layer”, and use the “Mtext Editor” and set to “By Layer”. Also use the “Mtext Editor” to standardise height and font, as in Figure 5.
Figure 5.