Topic Title

I've been wanting to try a new font and been searching around for a new one, and wondered what is being used out there in DCAD land.

Is there any stated preferences, or does it all boil down to personal taste?

What about .chr vrs TTF?

From the past on dbug, it looks like .chr is perfered because of the regen time and size of file. Any comments?


p.

Hello Peter,

CHR is the native DataCAD font. It will work better in DataCAD because it is much faster in DataCAD. TTF (Truetype Font) are supported, but they definitely require more "umpf" in your hardware; both RAM, and video speed/RAM are needed for screen refreshes, and plotting TTF's takes a lot more time, too.

If you really need the look/style of a TTF, then use it as sparingly as you can. But I would stick with CHR's for your "everyday" font.

Like Neil said the TTF are quite a bit slower, even on fast systems, but hopefully it will be faster for ver. 12. TTF's should export and be supported better translating to other CAD programs. We will have to wait and see how things go. We use TTF for our schedule titles and title blocks, but not for noting up a plan yet due to the display slowdown. Multi line text is also going to be a welcome tool too!

Hmm.. now I understand better... not arguing for TTF but all one has to do is togel off the T for the regen question... as I do alot since still in windows 98se

p.

I been using a great TT font that lends a much-enchanced hand-lettered "feel" to me construction documents...and living with the slower regens. It may be vanity, but with extensive use of differing line-weights, a hand-lettered font and liberal use of overshoot, the drawings just "look" more "professional" and hand-drawn when 17X11" plots...more like they're 50% reductions of hand-drawings, rather than computer plots.

I deal with a number of "civilian" clients (private homeowners), and having the drawings look more hand-crafted helps preserve the impression that they are dealing with a professional Architect, not just someone with a CAD system. The "warmer" and "softer" I can make the drawings feel, the better. Harsh, clinically-precise technical drawings and "machine-perfect" lettering makes the drawings too harsh and "perfect"; then they get nervous about making suggestions or candid comments since the drawings now are "official" or too far along. A hand-drawn look keeps their emotional-"temperature" at the sketch-stage...free and loose.


One short-cut I use, especially for details, is I have a rough-conversion chart for some CHR fonts to TT fonts; adjusting the "aspect" and "factor" when I change the "fontname" so that the text is the same width as beforehand.

Exactly... I argree.. that's the type of font I'm looking for... could you give me the name, so I can take a look at it?

thanks p.

Hmm.. now I understand better... not arguing for TTF but all one has to do is togel off the T for the regen question... as I do alot since still in windows 98se

If this is really a problem, and not just an old habit, I think it is a hardware problem rather than 98SE. I'm sure Dcad loads faster in XP, but I don't think it runs noticably better.

Other than perhaps for the title, as Josh suggests, TTFs are a total waste of time, to the point where their use may be deemed unprofessional, the sort of things that may appeal to old Mackinwankers. TTFs are a latecomer to DCad but I have never received documents with TTFs from any body, using any CAD, ever. I can't say I regret this, and I wouldn't insult those people by inflicting TTFs on them. Give as you would like to receive.

Further, I have no compunction about admitting to clients that I am professional enough to use CAD, particularly DataCad(!!), and accept the changes it imposes. After all, to paraphrase Thoroughly Modern Millie, this is 1992 - isn't it?

Now, where's that Payne's Grey wash?

I was using the .chr font Hand, but it has will not do dashes, - and then a client had me use a TTF that he liked, and the regen time was long, so I started to toggeling off the text.

Now I like to have a font like hand but one that will do dashes -, or some other choice. That's why the orginal question was... if you want to share... what are you using?

p.

I'm not sure if you are referring to DaveHand, from Cheap Tricks Ware.
My mate on the next hill, Gregg Kett uses DaveHand all the time and has no problems with dashes.

Yes I have tried Davehand.. but mine for some reason is Davehand vol1, its been so long since I tried it, I don't know where I got it from. Perhaps I should check and see if its the same.

Dunno about the volume. Gregg has been using it for years. It's fine.

NP

We use ARCHITXT and if I am not mistaken it looks like HAND but has no problems with dashes. It also has lower case which I don't think HAND does and it also has most of the specialty characters. I may be wrong about what features HAND does and does not have because I haven't looked at it in a very long time. I also have a very nice hand lettering TTF which I wouldn't mind using except for the slowness of TTF fonts mentioned earlier in this thread.

I just went back and looked at HAND out of curiosity. It does not look as much like ARCHITXT as I was thinking and I like ARCHITXT better. However, I had no problem with making dashes or any other normal character located on the keyboard but I did not find any of the specialty characters that I tried.

We use TT fonts sparingly - mostly for titles and for presentation/marketing drawings. Some of the chr fonts, especially some of the "presentation" 3rd party ones, are built with many "strokes" per character and are even slower to display than TT fonts. So the availability of TT fonts has, in some instances, has meant an increase in performance. We have always been happy to use arcwy2gp as a standard font for 95% of our text.

That said, the range of TT fonts that are available has enabled us a greater degree of control over the look of our presentation and marketing graphics. The ability to use the same fonts in a DataCAD drawing as in a Word document (or any other application) has real benefits.

Some architectural fonts;

This is my office-standard; http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/providence ... tsman-ndp/ .
I use this in varying aspects depending on the printed size, and if all-caps or mixed-case. It's actually very-close to my own lettering when hand-drafting. I use this mixed with CHR light-chiseled and heavy-chiseled. Also, depending on the type of note or legend, I use either all-caps or mixed. Typically I use the keyboard cap-lock so that I can "drop-in" lower-case lettering for things like "at ____oc.", "dia.", "-degrees" and the "x" in 2x4; even if the rest of the note in in all-caps.

For office correspondence, rather than the std. Times-Roman I use Goudy Old-Style for all correspondence and billing with old-style decending numerals.


The same foundry has two similar;
http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/providence ... igner-ndp/
http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/providence ... itect-ndp/

"My Fonts" has hundreds of fonts of all types, and the prices are quite cheap if you just need a few.

If you want to look like Leonardo daVinci;
http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/p22/da-vinci/
or Michelanglo;
http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/p22/michelangelo/

and some others that I have collected samples of that have an architectural feel;

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/blambot/architext-bb/

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/blambot/atland-bb/

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/chank/gfy- ... h-regular/

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/comicraft/hellshock/

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/comicraft/hellshock/