What Not To Do In AutoCAD – text over a table cell

This is the first in a new series of posts titled “What Not To Do In AutoCAD” where we look at practices that should never (usually never) happen in AutoCAD because, well, you’re doing it wrong!

Here is a screenshot of a legend in a drawing.

At first glance it appears that the AutoCAD user has created a legend for their drawing using an AutoCAD Table.  Great idea.  The columns and rows are set to a standard size and will ensure that each drawing’s legend will have a uniform look.  It also ensures that the text will be lined up every time with no additional effort.  Fantastic.

Now select the text in the legend to edit it.  This is what we found:

Each text instance is not a field in the table but an individual multiline text object.  The user created text objects then aligned them perfectly on the table cells.  The left most column are center justified while the second column text objects are left justified.  The text objects would have been fine if the table wasn't

already there.  The purpose of using a table in this case is so that you don’t have to line up or size the text.  The table does that for you.