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I've been away from DataCAD (actually all CAD) for a few years so I'm a little rusty. Is there a way I can use TrueType fonts without checking "Map fill colors to pen colors" on the pen table? So far the only way I've been able to do it is to outline the text with a normal pen color and then fill the text with either a really dark fill or resort to using white. I just thought I'd see if there's something obvious I'm missing or something. Anyone got any suggestions? Typically I've tried to avoid using TTF fonts but I'm trying to open my options up a bit.

Greetings, and welcome back! If you are using TTF fonts that are large enough to require the fill to be printed, then I don't think there are many options - either the fill is white/black, or you check that box, and map the color to a pen. You probably want to use the TTF as fill only, to keep it "tighter". If you use outline only, and that is enough to fill the font you are using, then that may also work.

If you are exporting to DWG, then Arial font with an aspect of 1.0 is a good way to go, as it translates better than most fonts.

Or, if you can use SHX fonts, they will be less work for your computer, and avoid this issue altogether.

Thanks for the response Neil. I thought that might be the issue. I'm currently working on converting it over to shx but its been a while since I've done that so I was hoping to find a faster work around.

Changing the font to SHX is relatively straightforward - Change/Text/ pick the new font, and then select the entities. The ParaText then lets you resize the "paragraphs", so this is the part that can take time.

Do you have other fills/bitmaps that you want (or not want?) to print? Is there an issue with printing with the TTF font fill mapped to a pen in the pen table?

I have fills that print on top of other fills. My pen table is setup similar to how Josh Huggins has his setup. I also use various colored fills when communicating designs to clients. I've reverted back to using shx fonts for the time being. I messed around with converting the ttf font to shx today and was able to get a few letters done but I'm not sure if its worth the effort at this point.

Okay, it sounds like you may have a Pen Merge issue? The trick to solve this is to have the order of the pen definitions in the Pen Table to be the lightest at Pen 1, and the darkest at the bottom on the list.