About Controlling the Appearance of Dimension Text

You can include prefixes, suffixes, and user-supplied text in dimensions. You can also control the text style and formatting used in dimension text.

Dimension styles support a variety of user-supplied text, prefixes and suffixes, and generated measurements. For example, you could specify a diameter symbol as a prefix to a measurement or add the abbreviation for a unit, such as mm, as a suffix. Text in this context refers to all dimension text, prefixes and suffixes, primary and alternate units, and lateral tolerances. Geometric tolerances are controlled independently.

Dimension text is treated as a single string of text, which you create and format using your text editor.

Control the Text Style in Dimensions

The appearance of dimension text is governed by the text style selected in the Modify/New Dimension Style dialog box, Text tab. You can choose a text style while creating a dimension style and specify a text color and a height independent of the current text style's height setting. You can also specify the gap between base dimension text and the box that surrounds it.

The text styles used for dimensions are the same text styles used by all text created in your drawing.

Supply User Text to Dimensions

In addition to the prefixes and suffixes specified for primary and alternate units, you can supply your own text as you create a dimension. Because the prefix, suffix, and user-supplied text form a single text string, you can represent tolerance stacks and apply changes to font, text size, and other characteristics using the text editor. You can also use the Properties palette to override the dimension style settings and dimension text of existing dimensions.