Is this for presentation drawings or construction documents? For presentation drawings, I can't think of a single .shx font that looks as good as a half-decent TrueType font.

For construction documents, stick to something like Simplex.shx or Romans.shx. For one, they're legible and reproduce well in bluelines, and secondly, if you're sending these CAD files to outside consultants or clients, you can be assured they'll have the same fonts loaded on their systems.

Few things are more annoying than some architect who insists on using some obscure fonts that produce a dozen error messages whenever I try to load the drawing myself because I don't have the same fonts loaded, and then ends up substituting that hideous txt.shx font by default.

i like book antiqua. i use it both in autocad and in all text that i produce from the office so it's all understood as from the same hand.

Will yield by far the fewest errors.

Seriously, romanS.shx with an 80% width factor is golden. There is nothing more contrived than a technical drawing with stylized fonts that dont translate to your consultants, ultimately replaced with romanS anyway. Use a thicker pen if you want them to be richer in print.

You guys are not helping. Seriously though, after I made the thread I remembered how pissed I get when someone uses a funky font on their drawings and that open font window pops up. I'll revisit those two (although I know I'll hate both) but I'm so tired of what I use now. This would be for CDs, so presentation does not matter. I use a truetype (the office logo font) for the title block stuff.

In that case, stick with simplex or romans. Construction documents are meant to communicate your design intent as clearly as possible, not to be an art project unto themselves. To that end, common utilitarian fonts are your best best.

i second using romans, but i use 0.85 width factor.

I just looked. RomanS and Simplex are pretty much the same exact font. I was worried that Roman would look like Times New Roman but they're not too bad. I'll probably go with the .8 factor; that's what I previously used.

Blueline prints.. hee hee... now that takes me back!

We use simplex for most of our notes, but manipulate the height & width to make it skinnier and more elegant. We also use Arial for "important" notes & labels but kept at a minimum - Arial tends to kill plotter pens!

i dunno, i'm a font dork and i happen to dislike romanS and simplex too. i found this website that sells a true-type-to-shx converter (though i haven't ordered it yet):

http://tcfonts.com/

in my mind there's nothing wrong with using a unique font...just be nice and pass it along to your consultants

romans is the best. i dont even fuck around with the scale factors. Ive used a lot of the fonts available in Autocad, and for consturction documents etc. romans is the best. And everyone has it....

Bahnschrift Light Condensed does it for me.