How to get "~" in NX8.5 drafting

What 'Font' are you using? If you're running NX 8.5 I would assume that you're using a 'TrueType' font like Arial (which I believe is the out-of-the-box default). If you are using really any 'TrueType' font then the 'tilde' (~) should automatically work.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Hi John,

Using BlockFont, NX does not show the ~.. Is BlockFont not a Truetype font? It has the NX icon next to it in font styles..

The NX icon means it is an NX font, not true type.

www.nxjournaling.com

Hi,

So using NX font, is it not possible to get "~" symbol? is there no key combinations which can give me the "~"?

The Site standard is BlockFont.. It would be good if I can make it work with the BlockFont..

You would have to modify Blockfont to add the tilde symbol to the file.
Since Siemens has enabled True Type fonts, I would suggest updating your standards to a True Type font as they are easier to do special characters with.

One option you do have is to use a secondary font, like Arial, and switch fonts when you want the tilde sysmbol, leaving the rest of the text in Blockfont.


"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli

One of the reasons that we now use TrueType fonts (which we'd had requests for years to do) was so that we would NOT have to keep adding special characters to the NX Font files. With TrueType fonts you not only can get access to literally thousands of STANDARD fonts, but they look and print much better as well, and as a bonus most fonts supports all the symbols that you could possibly want to use.

So our advice is move into the 21st century and adopt a decent looking TrueType font as your corporate standard. Arial works pretty good for most people.

BUT, if you insist that you MUST continue to use the obsolete 'blockfont' on your drawings, I've attached a version which includes a 'tilde' (~) and it doesn't need a special character or anything, just enter a '~' like normal. So take this file and add it to the ...\UGII\ugfonts folder, restart NX and you should see the 'blockfont-1' as one of the NX Fonts. You could also remove the old 'blockfont.fnx' file and rename this one to replace it and then you won't have to even think about it.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Thanks John.. You are the best..

Hi John,

We are now moving to Arial font.. My question is how to get the < and = , +/- symbols.. Should we still use the combo of keystrokes?

Hi John,

+/- is available in GDNT option.. But < and = or > and = is not available.. I remember you making a new BlockFont for this ..

So if we use Arial Font, then how to get the symbols back?

Please advise..

Thanks again for all the support

If you are on a Windows machine, fire up the character map program (in the start menu search for "character map"). Switch to your font of choice and scroll through to find the characters you need. Some characters have keystroke shortcuts, others do not. In either case you can copy and paste the characters you want into other programs (such as the note editor in NX).

[kbd]Alt[/kbd] + 0177 gives: ±

www.nxjournaling.com

Hi Cowski,

Iam looking for a similar solution like in this


John had created a version of block font style to map these into it..

In Arial font, do we still have to do this?

NXsupport said:

John had created a version of block font style to map these into it..

In Arial font, do we still have to do this?

Click to expand...

John created some characters and added them to the NX font definition. You will NOT have to do this with Arial font (or most other true type fonts) as the characters already exist in the font definition file. Some characters do not have handy keyboard shortcuts, so you will have to copy & paste them from the character map program or a Word document 'cheat sheet' that you keep handy.

The advice to switch fonts within the note text to access other special symbols still applies, but it may look odd mixing Arial font with NX Block font (or mixing any true type font with any 'stroked' NX font, for that matter).

www.nxjournaling.com

Hi Cowski,

I tried your process of character mapping.. But that won't work.. If I paste < and the = below it in Annotation editor, I get alert message saying incorrect operation or syntax.

So I guess we will have to map it into font style..

Hi John,

Please can you help in this regards?

You misunderstand my suggestion.
Windows comes with a utility called "character map"; open this utility, pick your font and scroll down until you find the symbol you need. Choose the symbol then copy & paste it into the NX annotation editor.

Character map - find the symbol you want here:


Copy & paste symbol into NX text editor:


www.nxjournaling.com

And if you need just the angled brackets to appear in a note, put a "$" in front of it.

www.nxjournaling.com

Hi Cowski,

Thanks for walking me through it.. This helps a lot..