Setting Text Height in Dimensions

While researching the flip option for the last tip, I ran across another feature that definitely deserves its own tip.

Where to set the text height for a dimension style has long been a source of confusion for LT users. Here's how it works:

• If you give a text style a fixed height in the Text Style Manager, that's the height it will always be, even in dimensions.
• If you set the text height to zero in the Text Style Manager, each text object of that style can have a different height, and you can define a height for text in the Dimension Style Manager.

I won't say which way is better -- I've seen both methods used successfully.

However, until LT 2009, there wasn't any way to tell from the Dimension Style Manager if the text style you were using had a fixed height. You could plug in any number you wanted in the Height box, but then you'd go back to your drawing and wonder why the height hadn't changed. (It was probably because the height was predefined in the text style.)

Now, though, if the text height has been preset, the option to change it in the Dimension Style Manager is disabled. Check out the Text tab:

See how the Text Height box is grayed out? That tells you that your text already has its height defined in the style.

It's not a big change, but I think it'll be helpful to a lot of people.