More About Engineering Symbols

You can create and customize engineering symbols.

However, you should be familiar with some concepts that are described in this section before you begin creating engineering symbols.

Related Topics
Creating an Engineering Symbol

Definition of Engineering Symbols

The Drafting workbench proposes three categories of engineering symbols:


  • Basic symbols: they are provided by default in standard files. They cannot be deleted nor renamed. However, it is possible to modify the font and character code of basic symbols.

  • Substitution symbol : it is provided by default in standard files. It cannot be deleted nor renamed. Its Unicode character can be modified, but not its font. The substitution symbol is displayed in a document in place of a symbol missing in the Standard file.

  • Custom symbols: Administrators can Creating an Engineering Symbol or delete it. They can also modify its name, font and Unicode character. Custom symbols are used in annotation text and dimension text only, from the Text Properties toolbar or from Edit > Properties > Dimension Text tab.

Parameters to Define Engineering Symbols

To define an engineering symbol, three parameters are necessary:


  • Name: in a standard file, all the symbols must have a unique name. However, two symbols from two different standards can have the same name.

    Important: Do not use Unicode characters to name engineering symbols, since standard files do not support Unicode string.

  • Font: all fonts can be used (Stroke, PostScript, TrueType or OpenType). The usable fonts are not limited to the fonts listed in Tools > Standard > Standard file > General > Allowed Text Fonts.

  • Unicode character: this is a number designating a character in font file. This hexadecimal code is valued between 0 and FFFF.