Include a useable modern font (TrueType/OpenType) compliant with ASME Y14.2 Standard

[LawrenceS]

The purpose is to switch from the ProE font.ndx/stroked stick font to a modern font.  This helps with:

• WYSIWYG Exporting while maintaining real searchable/editable text...especially for PDFs
• Creo4 essentially disabled font thickness control (except for entire notes) while the new Bold feature doesn't visibly bold for the stroked font styles.
• General downstream reuse is impaired by using a stroked font instead of a modern universal font.

It should at least have the following features/compatibility:

According to the standard, it should be:

• All caps with exceptions
• Gothic/Sanserif (without flourishes)
• Single stroke (all letters are the same thickness everywhere in the letter)

To be useable it should also be:

• Monospaced (spaces and letters take up the same space)...this is essential for readability for text alignment and tables on Engineering drawings)
• Comprehensively changed and controllable with config options
  • MBD compatible (ideally updateable with dwg config or mapkey-able from drawing)
  • Symbol compatible (diameter, degree, etc)
  • Whatever font is used it should be either universally present or embedded.  Not a big problem for Creo because startup scripts can distribute, so this is mainly for other applications (Creo View, pdf, dxf, etc).
• Nice to haves
  • Ideally, this font should be especially easily legable with All Caps but also lower case.
  • 100% differentiable between letters and numbers (e.g. Il1 = iL1, etc)
  • A text style checkbox like in word to switch between sentence case, title case, all caps, Small caps)

Great discussion on this:

• Switching from Stroked Fonts to True Type Fonts - Drawings & Models - Observations & Questions 

Please comment if I may have missed anything.

[LawrenceS]

Doing some more testing I also noticed that the font name is a bit confusing for the variations of fonts.  If going production with a modern font it would be very helpful to have the font set in the format tab, and actually show what the font is regardless if it is bold or not.  Currently, if some of the text is bold and some is regular Creo will report the font name "As Is" because it sees the Regular and Bold fonts as different fonts, even though the bold button usually switches it automatically.

Entire font box selected: As Is

Curser on bolded text: Inconsolata Bold

Curser on Regular text: Inconsolata Regular

[BrianSnyder]

Something interesting: 

1. Create a drawing that has a few notes with different font width ratios using the default font.ndx
2. Export the drawing to a PDF with the option "Use TrueType Fonts" selected (PDF Export Settings>Content>Fonts).
3. Creo converts the stroked font into a TrueType font for the PDF.
4. Notice the PDF reports the font as "ArialMT".
5. Also notice that the PDF text obeys the variations in width ratio.

Does this mean that Creo has the ability to output a variable width TrueType font? It certainly looks like it! I wonder why using a TrueType Font disables the width ratio on the menus? Being able to specify the font used during a "stroked to TrueType" conversion at PDF creation (that allowed variable width ratios) would be phenomenal.  I'd like to see PTC:

1. Enable a configuration option to select "stroked to TrueType" font for PDF export.
2. Create a new variable width TrueType font that overlays perfectly with the current font.ndx

Then work could be done with the more performant stroked font during drawing creation/editing and then exported to a TrueType PDF without issue.

EDIT:  I had intended to include an image but community.ptc.com refuses to let me upload it.

[BrianSnyder]

Added photos

[LawrenceS]

@BrianSnyder ,  This was a very interesting find that Creo can output variable width TTF but yet cannot change the width factor for text shown on the actual Creo Drawing.  I did some more testing and realized that we change the spacing a lot in order to fit text in tables or other tight places.  This would be a real obstacle to converting font.ndx to TTF.

Allowing us to change the width factor could be most helpful for the spaces between words.  It seems very odd to me that in Creo the TTF spacing between words is so close together.  It is more difficult for the eye to pick up where one word begins and ends.  This issue may be inherent to modern fonts when combine with all caps (which ASME Y14.2 still requires), however it does seem at least a little better in MS Word for the equivalent fonts.

I just tested the Courier New because it is monospaced, single stroke, and TTF (although it is not sanserif...so Courier has the flourishes).  It looks pretty good in that respect, however, it is wider and takes more space on the drawing, combined with the fact that Creo doesn't allow us to control the width factor..  I guess back to the drawing board! 🤔

[BrianSnyder]

Fortunately we don't deviate from the standard 0.8 width ratio very often. Usually in revision blocks but not that frequently. For the time being as I re-work drawings over to TTF formats I've been using the semi-condensed version of Incosolata where required and it appears to work well. Hopefully someday PTC can enable us to replace the default "ArialMT" with a font of our choosing. Preferably PTC themselves would create (or commission) a variable-width TTF that is a replacement for font.ndx, differing in that it has all unique characters of course. When selecting "stroke all characters" for PDF output this custom font should be the default.

[LawrenceS]

@BrianSnyder, reading this again a year later I see there may be a point of confusion for some.  As I understand your comment is that by "variable width TTF" are you NOT requesting that it NOT be monospaced.  Rather you are requesting the ability to continuously vary the width like we currently have with the monospaced font.ndx.

As a side note, I was working with someone from our marketing dept who deals with font types a lot, and he was very surprised that Creo coudn't continuously vary the OTF and TTF width to make more narrow or wider upon demand as that is a feature within those definitions.  Also noteworthy, he was also quite surprised that we don't have modern indent / tab-stop control for notes, tables, etc. 🤣

[BrianSnyder]

Correct. I am not asking for a non-monospaced font but for the ability to output a TTF font (monospaced or not) to PDF that respects the user input "width ratio" in the same manner stroked fonts do. The goal of my dialog here was to prove that Creo can indeed do this, but it's restricted to stroked drawing text converted to ArialMT via the "stroke all fonts" option during PDF creation.

[LawrenceS]

Thanks for the clarifications!

[QL_7456004]

Creo supports TTF fonts, but even Chinese fonts cannot be adjusted for aspect ratio. Most customers do not use Creo's default "font" font, so they really want to be able to adjust TTF fonts for aspect ratio.

[LawrenceS]

@QL_7456004, you stated: "Most customers do not use Creo's default "font" font..."

I actually have no idea what type of font most Creo customers use but would be surprised if most customers do not use the default 'font.ndx'.  Is this a PTC statistic, or a personal observation?  If observation, can you provide some context such as world region and/or industry?

It seems to me if more people used the TTFs then it sure seems like Creo would have better support and useability such as variable width spacing, symbols, indent/tab stops, etc.

It is noteworthy that I think the default model font appears to be a TTF.

[Chris3]

@LawrenceS I think he is implying that a lot of customers modify the default font or are using a TTF. There are threads in the community on how to go in and manually change the number "1" to have a hook at the top. I can't immediately find it but somewhere in the community is a post from someone that attached a modified version of the font.ndx that fixed the 1 issue.

[TomU]

Are TrueType fonts supposed to allow their aspect ratio to be modified?  I was under the impression that they are designed to be scaled but not stretched or squished.  PTC seems to be claiming the same thing:  https://www.ptc.com/en/support/article/CS99844

[BrianSnyder]

@TomU,

The quote 'This is because TTF fonts are "graphic" fonts; no parameter driving thickness and width does exist' from the linked support case doesn't agree with the testing that has been done in this thread, at least in regards to font "width". As proven above, Creo has the ability to output variable font widths to PDF. They can somehow do it with the ArialMT true type font used for converting from stroked to TTF.

While ArialMT is a good looking font I don't feel it's the greatest technical drawing font. I'd much rather have converted text be a monospaced font that closely matches font.ndx. The only exception is I'd want all the characters to be unique, which is major failing of font.ndx. If one doesn't exist PTC should have it commissioned.

I've been monitoring ability to output PDF's with TTF's for over a decade and honestly this situation is lackluster (trying to use my "nice" words here). For the cost of this software and the additional cost of maintenance most of us pay they need to do better. When creating a PDF with TrueType fonts became an option it should have come with a better default font.

I simply can't accept "It can't be done" when it's already being done.

[LawrenceS]

@Chris3, I didn't realize either was so popular.  Thanks for the clarifications.

@TomU, I saw a similar article yesterday in the knowledgebase and sent PTC a correction.  TTF and OTF can be variable width controlled.  According to our Marketing website guru who works a lot with fonts, controlling the width is a feature for all modern fonts and he was very surprised Creo didn't recognize this functionality.  But even better, we can see this working in MS Word with apparently any TTFs or OTFs that can be stretched/squished to our heart's content! 

You can also see in the Windows font directory that there are usually various width fonts saved in the TTF or OTF files.  e.g.

However, even the fonts that only have one TTF file (such as the randomly selected Britannic Bold which only has one TTF file shown in the Windows Font directory) Word still controls the width using the above points to make narrower or wider.

[TomU]

@LawrenceS,

What you're seeing in Word is not the same thing.  This is just adjusting the distance between each character, it's not actually changing the shape (or aspect ratio) of the characters.  Notice how the 'O' doesn't change shape:

[LawrenceS]

@TomU, Looks like you are right! Thank you

Looking at it again, there is another setting above it called scaling that does appear to stretch and skew as we want:

 

Because it actually looked taller when I scaled the text larger, I put a normal O as the first character to prove to myself that it was actually the same height! 😀

[TomU]

Yep, scaling does indeed change the aspect ratio.  I even tested with Arial WGL which is PTC's own custom version of Arial and that scales just fine too.  I guess if Microsoft is capable of stretching and compressing the TrueType fonts in Word, then PTC should be able to do the same in Creo!

[LawrenceS]

👍👍👍😎