text Notes with Columns

[cjanderson66]

Well this has probably been posted before but I can't seen to find any information on it.  I have several large general notes that I add to my plans but I can't seem to figure out a way that I can have them with several columns instead of just top to bottom.  I would like to have someway to create a numbered notes that I could place on my sheet so it could be with several columns to fit in a space and numbered properly.  Right not I am having to have several rich text and place them side by side.  Does anybody have any idea of how to do this or is this something that was missed by Chief.

[Alaskan_Son]

 I'm relatively certain that I understand what you are talking about but can you post a quick screenshot or plan file illustrating what you were trying to accomplish. I think it would benefit more people that way. 

[MarkMc]

You can make a table in a word processor or use a spreadsheet, paste special into Chief. IF you don't have text in the columns to start with they come in shrunken no matter what size you started with. Once in Chief you can insert text into the cells. Screenshots from a cad detail in Chief

[Alaskan_Son]

4 minutes ago, MarkMc said:

You can make a table in a word processor or use a spreadsheet, paste special into Chief. IF you don't have text in the columns to start with they come in shrunken no matter what size you started with. Once in Chief you can insert text into the cells. Screenshots from a cad detail in Chief

 

This is a good example of why I think it's so important to post examples. I was envisioning something completely different...more along the lines of paragraph wrapping.   There are definitely a few different things we could be talking about including columns only, cells, paragraph wrapping, etc.  

[johnny]

...or was he talking about this.  If he was, I can tell you this is much more a PITA than I thought it would be in Chief and very manual.  Not the end of the world, and fortunately you don't have to mess with this stuff often once you have it in layout.

 

[Alaskan_Son]

24 minutes ago, johnny said:

...or was he talking about this.  If he was, I can tell you this is much more a PITA than I thought it would be in Chief and very manual.  Not the end of the world, and fortunately you don't have to mess with this stuff often once you have it in layout.

 

 

 My terminology may not have been correct but this is actually what I meant when I said "paragraph wrapping".   By the way, there is a pretty good method I have found for doing this type of thing.   I might try to make a quick video when I have a minute or 20.

[johnny]

Just now, Alaskan_Son said:

 

 My terminology may not have been correct but this is actually what I meant when I said "paragraph wrapping".   By the way, there is a pretty good method I have found for doing this type of thing.   I might try to make a quick video when I have a minute or 20.

 

Id love to see a better way to do this.  I ended up just manually editing  - placing in 1 column but then copying into 4 duplicates and going back to delete the text in each column.

[cjanderson66]

2 hours ago, Alaskan_Son said:

 

 My terminology may not have been correct but this is actually what I meant when I said "paragraph wrapping".   By the way, there is a pretty good method I have found for doing this type of thing.   I might try to make a quick video when I have a minute or 20.

Johnny & Michael,

 

This is exactly what I was talking about.  How do we do this in Chief or is it even possible?

[MarkMc]

This is similar to what I showed before but may suit a little better. Still not perfect. Made a table in word processor with two row and four columns.

 

Set it to width and equal columns, put type in the column that spanned side to side, then added carriage returns down the second row of one column to expand the height (though that can be done in Chief)

Oddly when I first made this I was able to type in the second row without it expanding, but that stopped working. So I added in some guidelines to be able to see if the columns moved. When adding text further down use carriage returns to keep column width from expanding. (not ideal for a major copy paste but with the guides I guess that is doable)

Delete unwanted returns when the length gets too long but be careful as it has a tendency to delete ALL the returns in a column when selecting.

 

Columns.zip

[Alaskan_Son]

On 12/14/2017 at 2:29 PM, cjanderson66 said:

Johnny & Michael,

 

This is exactly what I was talking about.  How do we do this in Chief or is it even possible?

 

Post an example and maybe I'll do a quick video.  Ideally, a plan and layout with the desired text showing how you would like it to look and where you would like to place it on your layout page. 

[CJSpud]

For doing "simple" spreadsheets, you can fairly quickly create decent looking schedules using Chief's regular text tool.  Not a perfect way to go ... just depends on how fussy you want/need to be.  Dan Baumann recently posted this as a tip for those who are on his Chief Experts email list.

 

 

You will probably have to do some editing when setting up one of these spreadsheets, but that is usually true of any spreadsheet.  When entering the appropriate text when creating schedules such as I am showing, you just need to "tab" to get to the next column.  Pretty simple once you've done one or two.

 

Here's a few more images of an example showing the process:

 

             

 

If you have a title that you don't want being split by lines between columns, you might be able to keep it in once cell (perhaps) using 2 lines in the row, by futzing with it.  I had that in the above example for a moment and then something else I did to the column sizes negated it and I couldn't figure out how to get it back.  Have fun if this method is useful to you.  PS:  As you can see, I didn't win the spelling bee!

[Alaskan_Son]

1 hour ago, CJSpud said:

For doing "simple" spreadsheets, you can fairly quickly create decent looking schedules using Chief's regular text tool.  Not a perfect way to go ... just depends on how fussy you want/need to be.  Dan Baumann recently posted this as a tip for those who are on his Chief Experts email list.

 

 

You will probably have to do some editing when setting up one of these spreadsheets, but that is usually true of any spreadsheet.  When entering the appropriate text when creating schedules such as I am showing, you just need to "tab" to get to the next column.  Pretty simple once you've done one or two.

 

Here's a few more images of an example showing the process:

 

             

 

If you have a title that you don't want being split by lines between columns, you might be able to keep it in once cell (perhaps) using 2 lines in the row, by futzing with it.  I had that in the above example for a moment and then something else I did to the column sizes negated it and I couldn't figure out how to get it back.  Have fun if this method is useful to you.  PS:  As you can see, I didn't win the spelling bee!

 

Here's another little bonus tip for you.  If you convert an actual Schedule to text you can then modify that text box and keep the non-divided title line (including the double grid line even). 

 

I've never been able to figure out how or why the text box can work that way when starting with a schedule but not when starting with a text box.  Wish I knew what sort of wizardry is going on under the hood with that one.  

[CJSpud]

Michael:

I give that a look the next time I do one.  Thanks.

[Richard_Morrison]

On 12/14/2017 at 1:17 PM, johnny said:

 

Id love to see a better way to do this.  I ended up just manually editing  - placing in 1 column but then copying into 4 duplicates and going back to delete the text in each column.

Try this: 

 

[CJSpud]

 

 

Richard:

Thanks for that info ... I don't remember seeing that earlier thread and your post.  I have been having a play at doing what you are suggesting but with my MSWord skills being on the short side, it remains to be seen as to how well "I" can make this technique work for me.   Here's an image of a test of this technique using a custom 11 x 16 page size for 5 columns then printed to 11 x 17 page size (seemed like that was my best choice when printing to PDF). 

 

 

I think I will do some more playing and see if there's anything I can do to use up more space at the top and bottom; perhaps seeing if Word will let me go with a bigger custom page size.  The real test for me will be getting the various formatting techniques and styles to work in the text document.

 

 

[CARMELHILL]

I saw someone do this little trick a few years ago. I create the text column as a detail in the layout sheet, send to layout, now reposition the column of text on your sheet, cutoff the bottom where it goes off the sheet, copy that column to the top of the sheet in the next column, and expand that new detail column downward towards the bottom of the sheet. I would do a video but I'm away from the office.

 

It only requires minor repositioning of the top and bottom layout boxes to get it right.

[Alaskan_Son]

4 minutes ago, CARMELHILL said:

I saw someone do this little trick a few years ago. I create the text column as a detail in the layout sheet, send to layout, now reposition the column of text on your sheet, cutoff the bottom where it goes off the sheet, copy that column to the top of the sheet in the next column, and expand that new detail column downward towards the bottom of the sheet. I would do a video but I'm away from the office.

 

It only requires minor repositioning of the top and bottom layout boxes to get it right.

 

Yup.  This is the method I use for this type of thing as well.  Only takes a minute and allows you to leave the note "live" and in one piece.  I do the same thing for multi section schedules or when notes/schedules need to extend across multiple pages of a document.  

[Kbird1]

10 hours ago, CJSpud said:

 

 

Richard:

Thanks for that info ... I don't remember seeing that earlier thread and your post.  I have been having a play at doing what you are suggesting but with my MSWord skills being on the short side, it remains to be seen as to how well "I" can make this technique work for me.   Here's an image of a test of this technique using a custom 11 x 16 page size for 5 columns then printed to 11 x 17 page size (seemed like that was my best choice when printing to PDF). 

 

 

I think I will do some more playing and see if there's anything I can do to use up more space at the top and bottom; perhaps seeing if Word will let me go with a bigger custom page size.  The real test for me will be getting the various formatting techniques and styles to work in the text document.

 

 

 

I was looking at this method myself this afternoon after looking at Richard's Post but it sounds like you had the same issue as me ... no option to enlarge the PDF by 200% was available in the Print Dialog Box.   The Trick I used is to set Acrobat Reader on the File>Print Setup Tab to ARCH_D size paper and Landscape Mode, (or ANSI_D if ANSI_B Template) this allows printing to pages up to that size now) and then in the Print dialog , set the Page Scaling to Fit To Printable Area and then reprint it using a Print to PDF Printer like Microsoft's built in PDF Printer or Bullzip PDF Printer , which I use.

 

I found it was best to make the Template ANSI_B (Ledger size, 17x11) or ARCHB (12x18) depending on whether ARCHD (24x36) or ANSI D (22x34) is the Layout Size and then once in Layout, scaling The PDF after importing it , to fit inside the Title Box making sure the aspect ratio stays the same. That maybe different if you have the ability to scale the Original PDF by any percentage you want eg 185% instead of using a Paper size twice that of the Original.

 

Here are my files if you want to test it out.....including some test PDFs.  I used Richard's Instructions and my own notes in the Template to fill in the Columns so I'd always have them with the Template , so no need to C&P the above info. I made One with a Border and One without , since I couldn't decide..... if you want them 12x18 , reset the Page size in Word on the Page Layout Tab to ARCHB  and resave them , as I made mine Ledger Size (17x11) since one of my Printers can do that if needed. ( 4 sheets = 22 x 34 or ANSI_D)

 

Plan Specification Templates.zip

 

 

Mick.

[CARMELHILL]

I made this video of how I started doing it a few years ago. It may seam incredibly redundant to some people but sometimes you don't realize a simple work around there could be until you see it from someone else.

 

I can't be bothered trying to learn MSWord macros and linking and programming, blah, blah, blah. But this was the simplest way to do it, and I stumbled upon it from an imported Autocad file a few years ago. It's basically a trimmed Viewport, or in our case, a Cad Detail that gets sent to layout, and trimmed on the layout sheet.

 

 

 

 

[CJSpud]

Mick:

 

I just did pretty much what Richard talked about ... tweaked the column spacing and margins a little ... used 11 x 17 ... did the smaller font sizes ... and then sent to Layout at 1/2" scale.

 

Carmel:

 

Thanks for the video ... a good method to use as well.  I like to use various text sizes and bold (section titles) and standard fonts, some with underlining, so maybe Carmel's and Michael's methods may look the best IMO even though there's a little tinkering to get everything in the multiple columns per page.

[Kbird1]

37 minutes ago, CJSpud said:

Mick:

 

I just did pretty much what Richard talked about ... tweaked the column spacing and margins a little ... used 11 x 17 ... did the smaller font sizes ... and then sent to Layout at 1/2" scale.

 

Carmel:

 

Thanks for the video ... a good method to use as well.  I like to use various text sizes and bold (section titles) and standard fonts, some with underlining, so maybe Carmel's and Michael's methods may look the best IMO even though there's a little tinkering to get everything in the multiple columns per page.

 

Hmmmm , I guess you and I actually did it totally different then  

 

  The Whole Idea of doing the Plan Specification in Word 1st is so you can do exactly what you want to do ...

 

ie: " use various text sizes and bold (section titles) and standard fonts, some with underlining," 

 

   And only once all done in Word save it as a PDF, ( make sure your page size is 11x17 1st) then in Acrobat Reader (or whatever you use), Print it to PDF at ARCHD size and import it into the Layout, with "No tinkering to do" as it's already all Finished.....  It works pretty well.

 

Mick.

 

[CJSpud]

Mick:

 

I was just playing around with the multiple columns in Word and not actually using Word to its full capabilities for the Text styles etc. with actual work product as you did.  I need to to look at your file and then do some more playing around with it and see what I like.  It definitely looks better than using the simple Chief text tool per Dan Baumann's tip, although that technique isn't so bad for creating fast/simple tables with borders etc. that essentially are spreadsheets. 

[Kbird1]

My Files are just 5 - Column Templates , nothing Special , so anyone can Copy and Paste all their Own Notes into them after deleting my Place Holder Text.

 

M.

[Alaskan_Son]

13 hours ago, CARMELHILL said:

I made this video of how I started doing it a few years ago. It may seam incredibly redundant to some people but sometimes you don't realize a simple work around there could be until you see it from someone else.

 

I can't be bothered trying to learn MSWord macros and linking and programming, blah, blah, blah. But this was the simplest way to do it, and I stumbled upon it from an imported Autocad file a few years ago. It's basically a trimmed Viewport, or in our case, a Cad Detail that gets sent to layout, and trimmed on the layout sheet.

 

 

 

 

 

Very nice of you to make a video Edward.  Thank you.

 

What you have demonstrated is basically the same method I would use myself.  The only things I would add are that:

 

1.  If your font(s) are all one size and your text has been cleaned up appropriately (I realize you hadn't taken the time in the video to finish that process), there really doesn't need to be much futzing with the top and bottom of your layout boxes.  As long as your first box ends halfway between lines of text, you shouldn't need to do anything but align text with the second box and then copy, point to point move, and reshape (snapping to previous layout box(es)).

 

2.  If you are pretty quick with your tools you can also use transform/replicate followed by a couple guidelines and align/distribute to make pretty quick work of the whole operation.  

 

Thanks again Edward.  It's a technique useful for a whole lot more than just columns of text and would make a good addition to anyone's toolbox.