TextStyle
The TextStyle command opens a dialog listing every named text style in the drawing. Create styles, edit their formatting defaults, and choose which one is current. New Text copies the current style’s settings when it is created.
Opening the Text Style dialog
- Type
TextStylein the terminal, or - Click the Text Style button in the Annotate panel.
The dialog opens as a floating window: every style listed down the left, the selected one’s properties on the right.
The style list
Each row shows the style’s name. A check mark identifies the current style—the one used by new Text.
| Marker | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ✓ | This is the current style—new Text copies its formatting defaults |
Click a row to select it for editing; double-click to select and make it current in one step. Use the pencil beside a style name to rename it inline. Standard cannot be renamed.
Editing a style
With a style selected, its properties sit on the right:
| Field | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Font | The typeface, picked from the same list FontManager manages — upload a custom font there and it appears here too. |
| Height | A required positive text height. New and legacy styles with a zero or negative height use 1; the manager accepts values greater than 0. |
| Bold / Italic | Toggle each independently; the live sample box above updates immediately. |
| Line Spacing | Multiplier applied between text rows. 1 uses normal spacing; larger values spread the rows farther apart. |
| Horizontal Alignment | Default paragraph alignment for new Text: Left, Center, Right, or Justify. |
| Frame | Draws a rectangular frame around new Text created with the style. |
The preview draws a two-line pangram through the same renderer as canvas Text. Font, height, bold, italic, frame, line spacing, and horizontal alignment all update immediately; the zoom readout shows the scale used to fit the preview. New styles default to Left alignment.
Annotative styles imported from DXF are currently hidden because annotative scaling is not rendered yet. Their records are preserved, but they cannot be selected or edited in this dialog.
A name that’s empty, already used by another style, or contains a character a DXF file can’t hold (`< > / \ ” : ; ? * | , = “) is rejected with an inline error, and OK stays disabled until every style’s name is valid.
Creating and deleting styles
- New duplicates the selected style—all its formatting defaults—under the next free name (
Style1,Style2, …), and selects it for editing. - Delete removes the selected style, but only when it’s neither
Standardnor the current style; the button is disabled otherwise.
Setting the current style
Set Current makes the selected style the one new Text is created with, and is disabled once that style is already current. The same switch is available without opening the dialog: the dropdown next to Text Style in the Annotate panel lists every visible style.
A style is a template at the moment of creation. Font, height, bold, italic, line spacing, alignment, and frame are copied onto the new Text entity; the entity is not kept live-linked to the style. Editing or deleting the style later does not change existing Text.
Saving or discarding changes
Every edit here works on a copy of the style table. OK writes the copies back — renames, new styles, deletions, and the current-style choice all take effect together — and closes the dialog. Close (or Escape) discards everything, whether you clicked New, Delete, or a checkbox, and leaves the drawing exactly as it was.
Keyboard reference
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
↑ / ↓ | Move the selection up or down the style list |
Escape | Discard changes and close the dialog |
Related commands
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
| Text | Draws a text label — takes its font, weight, and height from the current text style |
| FontManager | Browse, select, and upload the custom fonts a text style’s Font field draws from |
| MatchProperties | Copies a text entity’s height to others — not its font, bold, or italic |
DXF compatibility
Name, font files, bold, italic, and the annotative flag belong to DXF text-style records and are preserved during import and export. KulmanLab writes STYLE group 40 as 0 (variable height) and stores the style’s last-used height in group 42; this keeps a fixed STYLE height from overriding a dimension style’s own text height in other CAD applications. Frame, line spacing, and horizontal alignment are per-Text defaults in KulmanLab rather than DXF STYLE-table fields, so they are not stored on the named style during a DXF round trip.