Annotations Modify - Modify the attributes of annotation features or graphic labels

With this function you can modify the attributes (font, style, color, size, rotation, label text and position) of graphic labels in the view and of annotations in annotation themes (this only works with AutoCAD DXF files that were created with the Arc4You extension). You must first select the labels you want to modify using the pointer/selection tool or the function Annotations Select. Each attribute has a checkbox that must be activated before changes can be done. If the checkbox is deactivated, the corresponding attribute won't be changed.

Click on the Analyze button to analyze the attributes of the chosen annotations or graphic labels (the most common value of each attribute will be displayed in the dialog). If all labels have the same value, the corresponding checkbox will be activated as well - all other attributes will be deactivated (if you activate these attributes all exceptions or not corresponding labels will be adjusted to the majority).

In the preview area in the left bottom of the dialog you can see a text with the current settings of font, style, size and color and thus you can proof the modifications you will apply to the chosen labels.

• Annotation Features: Choose the annotation themes in which you want to modify annotations (themes in which annotations are selected are marked with a * behind the name). With the button you can select the active, with the visible and with all annotation themes of the view. Press the Shift key while clicking on a button to add these themes to the current selection and the Ctrl key to deselect them.
• Graphic Labels: Select the themes whose attached graphics you want to modify. Select the option <Detached Graphics> to modify unattached graphics. The buttons , and work according to Annotation Features.
• Labels: Selected uses only the selected, All uses all labels. The number of the selected and of all labels is displayed behind these two options. If no labels are chosen, you can't run the function (the button isn't active).
• Alignement: Here you can choose the alignement of the text (nine different positions as in Theme - Properties: top left, top center, top right, center left, center center, center right, bottom left, bottom center, bottom right). The alignement is not a permanent attribute of the annotations but determines how their position is adjusted when the text is modifed (Rotation, Size, Text, Font, Style). The currently selected alignement is kept when the dialog is opened again.
• Offset: With this option you can change the position of the labels. Enter positive or negative values in Map Units of the view to move the labels in X (east-west) or Y (north-south) direction.
• Rotation: At Fixed Angle you can enter an absolute rotation angle in degrees that will be assigned to all chosen labels (values between 0 and 360°, 0° for normal, 90° for vertical adjustment, 180° to put the labels upside down, etc.). At Rotate you can rotate the labels by a specific angle relatively (positive values turn the labels counterclockwise, negative values in a clockwise direction).
• Font: Activate this checkbox in order to change the font family.
• Style: To change the font style, though only the options Normal (instead of Standard and Roman), Italic (instead of Cursive), Bold (instead of Book), Demi (instead of Medium) and Light (instead of Thin) or combinations of those can be chosen. If no specific font is chosen, only Normal, Italic, Bold Italic and Bold are available (those labels whose fonts do not support the chosen style stay untouched).
• Color: To change the text color (the colors of the current ArcView color palette from the Symbol Window are available).
• Size: At Fixed Size you can enter an absolute font size in points that will be assigned to all chosen labels. At In-/decrease you can increase (positive values) or decrease (negative values) the current size of the labels. At Percentage you can change the current font size proportionally (percentages greater than 100 increase, below 100 decrease font size).
• Reference Scale: The font Size depends on the reference scale (e.g.: at the scale 1:10.000 the font size is 12.5 points - at 1:1.000 it is 125 points). If the checkbox is activated you can define this scale (the value entered last will be kept until you finish your ArcView session - see Annotations Select too). Deactivate the checkbox to refer the font size to the current scale of the view. If the Map Units of the view aren't defined though, the scale and the font size can't be calculated and modified properly.
• Text: Enables you to change the label text. You can either enter a text that will be assigned to all chosen labels (to take over the existing text of a single label to the dialog use the button Analyze first). To change the text of several labels at the same time, you can also define a valid Avenue function for strings (see ArcView Help theme calculating field values sub theme Performing operations on string fields), where the variable "X" represents the existing text of the single labels. Examples:
• The most simple function is + to add characters at the beginning (e.g. "Text"+X) or at the end of the text (e.g. X+"Text").
• Use Left to cut off the text at a specific length (e.g. X.Left(20) for a maximum length of 20 characters).
• Use Middleto get parts of the middle of the text (e.g. "A"+X.Middle(1,4) to get the characters 2 to 5 and to replace the first character with an "A").
• Use Substitute to replace specific characters with others (e.g. X.Substitute("_", "-") to replace an underscore by a hyphen, X.Substitute("old", "new") to replace "old" by "new" or X.Substitute("-", "") to delete all hyphens.
• Use Trim to remove all leading and trailing blanks and BasicTrim to remove specific characters at the beginning or the end of the text (e.g. X.Trim or X.BasicTrim("- ", ". ") to delete all hyphens and blanks at the beginning and points and blanks at the end of the text).
• Use UCase to transform the text into capital letters, with LCase into small letters and with Proper the first letter of each word (separated by blanks) into a capital letter and the rest into small letters (e.g. X.UCase, X.LCase or X.Proper). Use BasicProper to define additionally which characters shall be used to divide the words (e.g. X.BasicProper(" -/") would be more useful than X.Proper).
• Of course you can combine all functions as you like. For example:
  X.Left(5) + " - " + X.Middle(5,99).Substitute(".","").Trim.BasicProper(" -/")
• Click on the button to run the function. When finished, the status bar shows the number of modified labels or an error message if an annotation theme can't be modified.

Warning: Once you clicked on the modifications are applied to the annotations directly in the AutoCad DXF files - there is no way to restore the previous state of your annotations! You must create a backup of your annotation themes before if you want to undo the modifications!