Creating Line Styles with TTF Font Characters

This Tech Tip explains how to create symbol linestyles using characters from TTF fonts.

Linestyles can display text characters from any font installed on your PC. This tutorial explains how to create a 'boundary' linestyle consisting of square blocks from the 'Webdings' symbol font.

For your convenience, below is a map of the Webdings characters which will appear in place of the normal text characters:

Procedure: 1. Open AllyCAD 2. Go to Tools Menu > External utilities, select 'Linestyle Editor', and click 'OK':

3. The info dialog appears with important information. Read it and then click OK:

4. In the Line style Editor, Go to File Menu > Open > Extras.lst 5. Add a New Line style by going to Edit menu > Insert 6. Rename your new linestyle to, for example, 'Block line Style':

7. Enter the data for your new linestyle definition:
- Fill in the first segment (row) data:
- Length = 0, Font = Webdings, Symbol = g, and Scale = 1
- Fill in the second segment (row) data:
- Length = -4, and Scale = 1
8. Give it a good name and description:

9. Save the linestyle to your 'Current User' folder like so:
a. Select File > Save As from the menu
b. In the 'Save As' dialog, click on the 'Current User folder' button.
c. Enter the file name 'My Extras.lst', then click the Save button.


Since the linestyle definition references a Text Style in your drawing, you will need to add a text style to your drawing which is set up to use the font you want:
10. In AllyCAD or Civil Designer, go to Settings > Style Settings > Text styles
11. Click the 'Add' button to add a new text style, and name it Webdings.
12. Change the font face of the Webdings text style to 'Webdings'
13. Click OK to close the Text Style dialog

14. Now load the new linestyle you created:
- Settings > Style Settings > Line styles
- Click on Load button
- Click on Current User Folder
- Double Click on 'My Extras.lst'
- In the 'Import Linestyles' dialog, scroll to the bottom and select the line you have created – Webdings

Click OK
Click OK again to exit the Linestyles dialog
15. In the Command Bar, change the active linestyle to 'Webdings'
16. Draw some lines in your drawing. They should be drawn with the Webdings 'g' character (a square):

17. If you do not get the same results, edit the linestyle in the Linestyle Editor, then re-load the linestyle in the Linestyle Settings dialog.