Symbol Palette Combinations

As well as the true type symbol fonts provided with the program, there are a number of other readily available industry fonts. The symbols contained in different fonts can be collated in a symbol palette. This means that you can display symbols with a common theme but from different sources.

There is no practical limit on the number of palettes that you create nor is there any limit on the number of symbols in each palette.

If a font containing symbols you have included in a palette is removed from the computer, those symbols will not be available until the font is re-installed.

Creating a palette of symbols

To create a palette of symbols:

  1. Select Tools | Symbol Sets | Numeric (or Text ) from the main menu. If you are in a display dialog box, right-click in the Symbol set response.
  2. Double-click on one of the Symbol responses (the column of squares between the Value and Label columns).
  3. Click New in the Palette group. Any symbols in the palette will be cleared.
  4. Click the Add button. The Select Symbol dialog box will be displayed.
  5. Choose the font containing the symbol you require and then click Add. It will be added to the palette.
  6. Continue this process until you have added all the symbols you require.
  7. If you want to select multiple symbols use the Ctrl and Shift keys in conjunction with the mouse just as you would select multiple files in Explorer.
  8. Add a description to each symbol in the palette. This description will appear in the Label column of the symbol set. It will subsequently be included in a plot legend just as with hatch and colour set labels.
  9. You can also define a default rotation for the symbol (clockwise, in degrees). Any subsequent rotations applied to the symbol will be in addition to this default.
  10. Click Save. This will save the current palette (the name of the current palette is displayed in the top left corner of the dialog).

Using Save As you can save the current palette to any location on the local hard drive or network.

Inserting a symbol

It is possible to insert a symbol (or group of symbols) into the current palette. To do this you must choose a symbol and then return to the Select Symbol dialog. Select the symbol immediately after the location of the symbol you are inserting and then click the Insert button.

Deleting a symbol

You can delete one or more symbols from a palette by selecting them (Ctrl+click to select several symbols), and then click the Delete button or press Delete on the keyboard.

Moving a symbol

A palette of symbols may contain several symbols you use frequently. For convenience you may want to group these frequently used symbols in the first column or row of the symbol palette. To do this, click over each of the symbols and drag them to the desired location.