Taking Control of Font Substitution

 

 

Font Substitution

When you open a drawing created in another program you frequently see messages in the command line that font substitution has taken place:

Substituting font [ic-txt.shx] for font [TXT].
Substituting font [ic-simplex.shx] for font [SIMPLEX].

Intellicad uses substitute font files for many common fonts used by AutoCAD and other CAD engines.  If your other program used a font that is not found in C:\Program Files\MicroSurvey\MSCAD20XX\fonts then it will automatically substitute fonts that it DOES have available, and this can subtly affect the appearance of text in your drawing.  You can always copy additional fonts into the fonts folder, but if this is not possible your CAD program will use font substitution to find the best possible match:

Font substitution is controlled by a simple text file which the user can edit.  If you have font files available that you would like MicroSurvey CAD to use instead, you can edit the font substitution file.

1) Go to the following folder C:\Program Files\MicroSurvey\MSCAD20XX and‚ open the file ICAD.FMP Notepad.
2) Save a copy of this file on your desktop so that you can edit it.
3) You can command the program to ignore font substitutions by adding semi-colons at the left margin:

In the example below ic-simplex will no longer be substituted for simplex: simplex.shx;ic-simplex.shx

4) You can assign different font substitutions by making new entries.‚ 

In the example below I am substituting the font wingdings.ttf for txt.shx: txt.shx;wingdings.ttf

5) Save the ICAD.FMP file

6) Replace the ICAD.FMP file in your Program files folder with the revised one.  

Be sure to make a backup of the original in case you don't like the results!

7) Your changes will be applied the next time you open a drawing which requires fonts which are not included in your fonts folder.

 

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Making Other Fonts Available

There may be many more fonts available in your computer than MicroSurvey CAD knows about.‚  You can make these available by:

1. Open Cad Tools | Options | Paths/Files
2. Pick on Fonts
3. Pick Browse and navigate to the folder containing the font you need
4. The font will now be available when called for by a drawing.

You can also make a font available by simply copying an shx or ttf font file into any of the folders that are listed in the Options dialog mentioned above.