Function
Adds text to a drawing.
Syntax
TEXT any_text [orientation] ..
TEXT 'any_text' [orientation] ..
Mouse keys
Center selects the layer.
Right rotates the text.
Shift+Right reverses the direction of rotating.
See also CHANGE, MOVE, MIRROR, PIN, ROTATE, ATTRIBUTE.
The TEXT command is used to add text to a library element or drawing. When entering several texts it is not necessary to invoke the command each time, as the text command remains active after placing text with the mouse.
The orientation of the text may be defined by the TEXT command (orientation) using the usual definitions as listed in the ADD command (R0, R90 etc.). The right mouse button will change the rotation of the text and the center mouse button will change the current layer. Text is always displayed so that it can be read from in front or from the right - even if rotated. Therefore, after every two rotations, it appears the same way, but the origin has moved from the lower left to the upper right corner. Remember this if a text appears to be unselectable.
The reading direction for vertical texts can be changed from "up" to "down" in the user interface dialog.
If you want to have text that is printed "upside down", you can set the "Spin" flag for that text.
Texts can contain line breaks. While in the text dialog they can be entered directly with Shift-Enter, on the command line a break should be marked with "\n".
If the text contains several successive blanks or a semicolon, the whole string has to be enclosed in single quotes. If the text contains single quotes then each one itself has to be enclosed in single quotes. If apostrophes are required in the text, each must be enclosed in single quotes.
If the text shall contain plain backslashes, each one has to be escaped with another backslash. (For example TEXT 'abc\\def' produces abc\def).
If the TEXT command is active and you want to type in a text that contains a string that can be mistaken for a command (for example "red" for "REDO"), then this string has to be enclosed in single quotes.
The height and thickness of characters can be changed with the CHANGE commands:
CHANGE SIZE text_size .. CHANGE RATIO ratio .. CHANGE LINEDISTANCE value ..
Maximum text height: 2 inches
Maximum text thickness: 200 mm (7.7840 inch)
Ratio: 0...31 (% of text height)
Line distance: 0...250 (% of text height).
Texts can have three different fonts:
| Vector | the program's internal vector font | |
| Proportional | a proportional pixel font (usually 'Helvetica') | |
| Fixed | a monospaced pixel font (usually 'Courier') |
The text font can be changed with the CHANGE command:
CHANGE FONT VECTOR|PROPORTIONAL|FIXED ..
The program makes great efforts to output texts with fonts other than Vector as good as possible. However, since the actual font is drawn by the system's graphics interface, Proportional and Fixed fonts may be output with different sizes and/or lengths. If you set the option "Always vector font" in the user interface dialog, all texts will always be displayed and printed using the builtin vector font, independent from the settings of the individual texts and for each drawing. This option is useful if the system doesn't display the other fonts correctly.
You can use the SET Interface. VectorFont 0|1 command to change this setting.
When creating a new board or schematic, the current setting of this option is stored in the option "Persistent in this drawing" of the drawing file. This makes sure that the drawing will be printed with the correct setting if it is transferred to somebody else who has a different setting of this option.
You can use the SET VECTOR_FONT OFF|ON command to change the setting in an existing board or schematic drawing.
When creating output files with the CAM Processor, texts will always be drawn with Vector font. Other fonts are not supported.
If a text with a font other than Vector is subtracted from a signal polygon, only the surrounding rectangle is subtracted. Due to the above mentioned possible size/length problems, the actually printed font may exceed that rectangle. Therefore, if you need to subtract a text from a signal polygon it is recommended that you use the Vector font.
The Ratio parameter has no meaning for texts with fonts other than Vector.
The text alignment defines where the origin shall be put within the text. There are nine different possible alignments, which consist of combinations of the keywords left, bottom, center, right and top. These keywords can be given in any sequence, but only the last one of left/right and top/bottom will be taken into account for the respective direction. The center keyword only applies to those directions where no other keyword has been given. The default is left and bottom.
| CHANGE ALIGN TOP CENTER; TEXT 'ABC' | draws the text ABC with the origin at its top/center |
Only the characters with ASCII codes below 128 are guaranteed to be printed correctly. Any characters above this may be system-dependent and may yield different results with the various fonts.
Special texts in a symbol or footprint drawing, marked with the '>' character, will be replaced with actual values in a board or schematic:
| >NAME | Component name (ev.+gate name) 1) | |
| >VALUE | Comp. value/type 1) | |
| >PART | Component name 2) | |
| >GATE | Gate name 2) | |
| >XREF | Part cross-reference 2) | |
| >CONTACT_XREF | Contact cross-reference 2) | |
| >ASSEMBLY_VARIANT | Name of the current assembly variant | |
| >DRAWING_NAME | Drawing name | |
| >LAST_DATE_TIME | Time of the last modification | |
| >PLOT_DATE_TIME | Time of the plot creation | |
| >SHEETNR | Sheet number of a schematic 3) | |
| >SHEETS | Total number of sheets of a schematic 3) | |
| >SHEET | equivalent to ">SHEETNR/>SHEETS" 3) | |
| >MODULE | Module name (available in module sheets, otherwise empty) 3) | |
| >SHEET_HEADLINE | Headline of the sheet 3) | |
| >SHEETNR_TOTAL | Sheet number of a schematic with modules 3) | |
| >SHEETS_TOTAL | Total number of sheets of a schematic with modules 3) | |
| >SHEET_TOTAL | equivalent to ">SHEETNR_TOTAL/>SHEETS_TOTAL" 3) |
The format in which a part cross-reference is displayed can be controlled through the "Xref part format" string, which is defined in the "Options/Set/Misc" dialog, or with the SET command. The following placeholders are defined, and can be used in any order:
| %S | the sheet number | |
| %C | the column on the sheet | |
| %R | the row on the sheet |
The default format string is "/%S.%C%R". Apart from the defined placeholders, you can also use any other ASCII characters.
If a symbol or footprint drawing shall display an attribute of the actual part or element, a text with the name of that attribute, marked with the '>' character, can be used. By default, only the actual value of the given attribute will be displayed. If the attribute name is followed by one of the special characters '=', '~' or '!', the actual display is as follows:
| >ABC | 123 | |
| >ABC= | ABC = 123 | |
| >ABC~ | ABC | |
| >ABC! | _nothing_ |
Note that for each attribute name there should be only one such text in any given symbol or footprint! If there is more than one such text in a symbol or footprint that all reference the same attribute name, only one of them will be displayed when the part using this symbol or package is smashed.
Text can be overlined, which is useful for instance for the names of inverted signals ("active low", see also NET, BUS and PIN). To do so, the text needs to be preceded with an exclamation mark ('!'), as in
!RESET
which would result in
_____ RESET
This is not limited to signal names, but can be used in any text. It is also possible to overline only part of a text, as in
!RST!/NMI R/!W
which would result in
___
RST/NMI
_
R/W
Note that the second exclamation mark indicates the end of the overline. There can be any number of overlines in a text. If a text shall contain an exclamation mark that doesn't generate an overline, it needs to be escaped by a backslash. In order to keep the need for escaping exclamation marks at a minimum, an exclamation mark doesn't start an overline if it is the last character of a text, or if it is immediately followed by a blank, a double or single quote, or by a right parenthesis, bracket or brace. Any non-escaped exclamation mark or comma that appears after an exclamation mark that started an overline will end the overline (the comma as an overline terminator is necessary for busses).