Datasheet

IT’S ALL ABOUT STYLE

Let’s work our way down the component properties and adjust them as needed for our label:

Name is self-explanatory. It is the name used in the Component dropdown menu and when

selecting other components. When building complicated labels, a little name description goes a

long way.

Visibility set to true means that this component will show on screen. Invisible components can

be invaluable when creating complicated labels, as you’ll see in later chapters.

Anchor Component and Anchor Point are straightforward, but many users have issues when

first using these options. Every component of the label has an anchor component, anchor point,

and attachment. The Anchor Component is how you tell Civil 3D where you want to hang the

label component. This component is bounded by a box, with nine anchor points, as shown in

Figure 1.18. In this illustration, the nine possible anchor points are represented with X’s and the

nine possible attachments with O’s.

Figure 1.18

Anchor and attach-

ment points

The middle portion of the dialog changes depending on the type of component, but the concepts

are similar. In the case shown here, the middle portion is the Text property. Under Text, the first

option is Contents, which determines the actual content of the text.

1. Click the Contents Value cell, then click the ellipsis button that appears to the right to open

the Text Component Editor.

2. Click in the preview window of the Text Component Editor. This is a simple text editor, and

you can type anything you’d like in a label here. Additionally, you can insert object infor-

mation from Civil 3D objects as we’ll do now.

3. Highlight and delete the text that is in the preview window.

4. On the left-hand side, select Surface Elevation from the dropdown list in the Properties

text box.

5. Change the precision to one decimal place by clicking in the column next to precision and

selecting 0.1, as shown in Figure 1.19.

6. Click the blue arrow circled in Figure 1.19 to insert your label text and elevation code into the

preview area.

7. Click OK to exit this dialog, and you’ll be back at the Label Style Composer.

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