Some users of SSM in AutoCAD don't want "----" or "--" (four or two hyphens/dashes) to show up on the plotted drawing when a property is empty.
Using a regular space character as a workaround to not getting "----" doesn't work for AutoCAD 2008 and older. It doesn't stay if the drawing is saved, closed and then opened.In AutoCAD 2009 and newer if a space is added nothing will show at all, not even the gray area so that you could see that it is a field there. Nothing. That makes it tricky if the field is in a mtext object and nothing else as you will not see it and might delete it unintentionally. Also next time you go in and edit properties the regular space will be removed.
Here is a better tip for empty fields or blank fields.
What on the other hand stays is entering ALT-0160 (Non-break Space) on the keyboard followed by an enter. To do it hold down the ALT key and type the numbers 0 1 6 0 on the numeric keypad. Now the four dashes will not show up their ugly face. You can also enter \U+00A0 as another way but it did not work in all cases. If you don’t have a numeric keypad on your keyboard you can run Character Map (C:\Windows\System32\charmap.exe) and locate the No-Break Space or search for it. Then copy and paste it.
An alternative that also can work is to enter %% or %%U in the property value. It does not always work. If a field is added into mtext or multiline block attribute, or in a Sheet Set Table it fails but if a field in a regular block attribute it works.
Note that this may not work for all type of text font styles. If it does not work and for example shows a ? change the style to another like Arial.
AutoCAD, AutoCAD Architecture (ACA/ADT), Revit Architecture, Revit MEP, Revit Structure, BIM, CAD, AutoLISP, VBA, VB, VB.NET, C#, databases, Access, SQL Server, FlexNet (FLEXlm), license usage reporting, software design, development, customization, integration...
Restored comments
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
I have found that if the text style for the field of the property is an AutoCAD-based SHX font (RoamnS for example)that entering ALT-0160 will display a "?". But it works just fine with True Type font based text styles.
January 12, 2005
Anonymous said...
One way around the "----" is to do the following:
Open a new drawing, and select drawing properties from the File menu. This opens the drawing properties dialog box. Choose the Custom tab, then add a new custom property with whatever the attribute tag/name should be.In the value field type space characters through space bar. This will add empty spaces in the value field.
In the Field command, select the custom property you created.
Inserting it will result in an empty field.
The custom property stores in the particular drawing. Save the drawing as template file for use in future new files. Open new drawings with the saved template file that contains the custom property for all new drawings.
February 15, 2005