Fitting Text and Arrowheads by Changing Their Size

You can fit text and arrowheads by changing their size yourself. The following illustration shows the features of the dimension line and text that affect the text and arrowhead fit.

You need room for two arrowheads, two pieces of dimension line, two text gaps, and the text. Each arrowhead and each piece of dimension line must be at least as large as the text gap. The Oblique and None arrowhead types have zero width and are therefore useful when space is limited. When you place the text above the dimension line, the text gap is not required. A basic formula for determining the space required for dimension text centered within the dimension line and inside the extension lines is as follows:

minimum width=2X(feature scaling) x (text gap + arrowhead size) + effective text width

The effective text width is the size of the intersection of the dimension line with a box surrounding the dimension text, sometimes called a bounding box. The box is the size of the dimension text plus the text gap around that text. This box is identical to the box drawn around a basic dimension.

For simple vertical dimensions with no text rotation, the effective text width is twice the text gap plus the text height. The illustration below shows the effective text width when text has been rotated. In this case, basic dimensions have been used to outline the box surrounding the dimension text.

The simplest way to fit the text within extension lines is to reduce the size of the text gap or the arrowhead. Another method is to reduce the overall dimension scale. You can also rotate the dimension text so that its orientation is close to perpendicular to the dimension line. Also, you can reduce the length of the text itself by adjusting the appropriate unit settings or by using a text style that specifies a text width factor of less than one (for example, 0.8).