Set font characteristics for leader text or dimension text

Developers
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1

Finally I can set font characteristics for text in 2016.

http://www.sketchup.com/intl/en/developer/docs/ourdoc/view#draw_text

But It only works for screen text and the size can only be defined in points.

I still can’t set font characteristics for leader text or dimension text.
Dimension text especially should usually be set to a height in units not points as you can in the Model Info window.

And I still can’t access or set the defaults in the Model Info window.

So this “improvement” is no help for me.
Somebody please tell me if I’m missing something.

2

This particular improvement was for a long requested exposure of properties of the screen text used for Ruby tools.

Which remain on the requested list.

Many of the defaults in SketchUp can only be set via a model template. This is awkward for scripting, and no help for an existing model file.

3

Is there an official “requested list” published somewhere?

4

Sorry, no. The “official” one is a company internal database.

(But I have personally witnessed the logging of these requests several times over the last 7 years.)

But there is a saying, “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”

So, I’m moving this thread to the Developer > Feature Requests category.

5

I squeeked last February.

So the new feature got my hopes up.

6

Several years ago I suggested a raft of missing API features at a Boulder Basecamp…
Which were duly noted by the SketchUp guys at the public meeting
These including access to Text’s:
height
pt or size setting
font
alignment
etc
… no joy thus far…

7

Hello,
Would it be possible to align Leader multi-lined text, left or right in SketchUp (before going to Layout)?

Multi-lined text enters as aligned to the end of a leader, and stays that way if the text is on the right of the screen. Curiously, if the leader is on the left side of the object, the multi-lined text will align away from the leader and be left-aligned. It would read better if it could be right-aligned but no options seem to exist? - as far as I can confirm in the past, OMG, two hours
;-J

Am I missing an option to align the text?
If it does not exist, can one be created?
I’m working on a 2020 fall conference presentation and would like to have this functionality to show by then…ippp.*

Thank you!
Joseph Cincotta
*if possible pretty please

8

Do not waste any time waiting for this (font property control) to be added to SketchUp Text leader objects (most especially by this coming fall.)

This thread is 5 years old, and in it I previously mention that text property control had been requested numerous times over 7 years prior to that.

I believe that the developers of SketchUp have a policy on LayOut being the professional presentation application for SketchUp models, and so have concentrated coding efforts at dimensions and callouts for LayOut documents rather than the 3D .skp files.

That being said, the SketchUp C API does have font control for leaders and dimensions exposed, however the C API is still (as of this writing) only read-only for live models.

You might find a workaround by having a library of text leader components with various properties, and insert them via code, then explode them and attach to objects, tweak the leader vector, etc.

(But as you noted, currently the alignment seems to be hard-coded.)

Be aware that SketchUp model Text leader objects are rudimentary callouts that exist in 3D model space.

LayOut Label objects are full featured callouts that exist in 2D paper space.

So for complex engineering documents, prefer 2D paper space dimensions and callouts, which do have font property control accessible via the Ruby and C APIs.

See:

Could Layout Labels be set before going to Layout ?

Yes if your code is using the LayOut API to create or modify the .layout file in which the labels will exist.

It might also be possible to use SketchUp Text leader objects as a sort of boilerplate for later LayOut Label objects. Meaning, that the code would read the Text objects (probably using C API read-only calls) to generate the LayOut Label objects (if you wanted the LO labels to get their font settings from the model text objects.)
The code could also override these font properties for other global font settings.
I’d envision that the model viewports in the resultant LayOut document would then have the layer/tag switched off that the model leader objects use, so they do not show in the LayOut document.

9

Dan, Thank you for your detailed and knowledgeable response.

Perhaps as you suggest, we may, “find a workaround by having a library of text leader components with various properties, and insert them via code, then explode them and attach to objects, tweak the leader vector, etc.”

However, in the interests of offering our design services more competitively, our team is developing a workflow that avoids Layout altogether; or what we euphemistically refer to as the “Layout Timesink.”

Fortunately, there are options to have well-behaved leaders in third party applications.

1 Like
10

Re: 3rd party alternates to Layout: I use Microsoft Visio for designing floor plans and all construction drawings. It works beatifully. I import plan to Sketchup to develop in 3D, then export elevations and sections back to Visio for CDs.