Fonts

In order to use something other than the built-in stick font in AutoXChange 2024, you have to have the proper font file on the system. There are two types of font files used in AutoCAD drawings: SHX and TTF. SHX stands for “AutoCAD Compiled Shape File”, “compiled” because they take AutoCAD Shape Files (.SHP), run them through a processor and produce a SHX file. SHX files have been around for over 30 years and were the only AutoCAD fonts for many years. They have lost some of their importance with the advent of TrueType Fonts (TTF) which are a font definition originally created by Apple for use on Macintosh but is also the predominate font file system on Windows and Linux.

TrueType Fonts

Windows

TTF files on Windows are installed so they are part of the operating system. A TrueType Font file just sitting on the system, even in the Windows Font directory, without being installed properly will not function. The installation process modifies the System Registry to let Windows know about the new font.

1. Find the font file in Windows Explorer

2. Right click on the font file and select “Install” or “Install for all users”

Linux

TTF files on Linux are installed using the FontConfig tool. This tool is pre-installed on most Linux Distributions but can easily be installed using the same methods as used to install other Linux software on your distribution (yum on RedHat/CentOS, apt on Debian/Ubuntu, etc).

1. List the installed fonts to see if the font is already installed. You can pipe the output through grep to make it easier to see.

2. Install copy the font file (whatever.ttf) to the /usr/share/fonts directory and then run fc-cache to install the font.

3. List the installed fonts again to see that the font was installed. Again, you can pipe the output through grep to make it easier to see.

SHX Fonts

SHX fonts are imported from the directory pointed to by the fontpath parameter. Alternately they can be in the same directory as either the drawing or the executable or the fonts subdirectory of those directories (so c:\executable\ or c:\drawing\ or c:\executable\fonts\ or c:\drawing\fonts\). This is the same on Linux and Windows.