Original Article Date: October  2003

Updated:  December 2011

Contributed by Karl Peterson, this tutorial shows you how to split blocks of text by using a fence.

NOTE:  The following workflow does not work in MicroStation V8i.

Let's suppose that you've imported a rather large amount of text and now need to split or rearrange the data accomodate placement on your drawing. What do you do? Well, this simple little workflow works like a charm!

Below is an image showing the text node that needs to be split into two sections.

Place a fence around the portion you need to move and set the mode to clip.

Select the Move Element tool, adjust the settings and follow the prompts.

In the clip below, you can see the fence being placed around the bottom half of the text node followed by the activation of Move Element command. The next thing that happens is simple. In response to the prompt which reads: Enter first point, I snap to the left-center of the first line of text within the fence. This is the point I want to move from.

The next prompt is Enter point to define distance and direction, which is the same thing as saying Enter a datapoint for the new location. Since I want the bottom half to be lined up with the top half, I reposition AccuDraws compass to the left-center of the top line of text. This is done by snapping to the location and pressing O.

I then move my curser along AccuDraw's x-axis, keyin a value of 50 and accept the whole lot with a datapoint.

As you can see for yourself, the final result is that the fenced-in text is postioned exactly where needed.

It's also important to note, that MicroStation will drop the original text node so that you'll be left with individual lines of text. Although this shouldn't be a problem, it may be undesirable for some. (With thanks to Matt Colon for pointing this out.)

AskInga Article #162