New font height metric option for printing and exporting drawings: CAP height

You can now use CAP height as the font height metric in Tekla Structures drawings and have more control over the font height in drawing-related content like printing and exports.

Traditionally, the height of text in Tekla Structures drawings has been based on em (point size) font height metric only. However, some projects require the height of the text to be determined using another industry standard, CAP font height. CAP height represents the height of a capital letter more accurately than em height.

(1) CAP height

(2) point size (em)

With the new advanced option XS_DRAWINGS_USE_CAP_HEIGHT_FOR_FONT_HEIGHT you can control the font height in drawings. This model-specific advanced option is located in the Drawing properties category in the Advanced options dialog box.

When you set this advanced option to TRUE, CAP height is used in the drawing export (DGN, DWG, and DXF) and printing (paper, plot files, PDF), and the font height is the same as the height of the capital letters of a specific font. When you use CAP height, the font height set in the Tekla Structures drawing is the same when you open the drawing in Autodesk AutoCAD or Bentley MicroStation, or print the drawing to paper or to a PDF.
When you set this advanced option to FALSE, the em font height is used. When you use em height, and export the drawing from Tekla Structures to a DWG file, for example, the font height is converted from one unit to another (from em to CAP), and the result is many times an incorrect font height.
The default value is FALSE, and you may need to change the value to TRUE in your environment or for some of your projects.

The image below illustrates the difference in the font height in an exported DWG file when the advanced option is set to TRUE (CAP height is used) or FALSE (em height is used):

Font height in drawing templates

The font metric change is not automatically applied to existing templates. Texts in drawings created by the drawing templates from Template Editor are not directly affected by the XS_DRAWINGS_USE_CAP_HEIGHT_FOR_FONT_HEIGHT advanced option. The reason for this is that the change in the font height might cause overlapping in the template fields.

If you want to use CAP height in a specific drawing template, you need to select the Use font CAP height option in the page properties of the particular template and then adjust the template content as necessary to correct any overlapping fields.
When you create a new drawing template, the preselection of the Use font CAP height option depends on how you have started Template Editor:
- If you have started Template Editor from within Tekla Structures from the File menu or when editing a drawing layout, Template Editor follows the XS_DRAWINGS_USE_CAP_HEIGHT_FOR_FONT_HEIGHT setting.
- If you have started Template Editor from outside Tekla Structures from the Microsoft Windows Start menu, the option is controlled by Template Editor preferences, and if you have selected the Use font CAP height for new graphical templates check box:

Note:

The template file version has been increased to enable the new CAP height unit, and older versions of Tekla Structures will not be able to use the newly created or edited templates.

Note:

For the existing, old version templates, the Use font CAP height option is not selected by default. To use CAP height in an old template, open the template for editing, select the Use font CAP height check box in the page properties, and save the template.