Sharing Civil 3D styles

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In Civil 3D, labels provide annotations that display dynamic information about objects within your drawing.

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You can customize label styles to meet project standards and to provide the relevant information

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based on your project needs or lifecycle.

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Additionally, sharing label styles between drawings can help to facilitate the design process.

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Begin with your drawing open in Civil 3D.

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When you draw objects, if they are not automatically labeled, you can easily add labels.

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To add a label, select the object; for this example, select the surface.

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Then on the contextual ribbon, in the Labels and Tables panel,

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expand Add Labels to select a label.

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Under Add Labels, select Contour Multiple.

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Then, in the drawing, draw a line across the contours you wish to label.

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A label is applied to each contour that the line crosses, which you can see by zooming in.

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You can change how labels are displayed by adjusting the style of the label.

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In Toolspace, on the Settings tab, expand Surface > Label Styles > Contour.

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Then, right-click Existing Major Labels and select Edit.

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The Label Style Composer dialog opens.

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The Information tab provides the name and description of the label,

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as well as who the label was created and last modified by, and when.

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The General tab controls the text style; whether the label is visible;

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the layer and orientation of the label; and whether the label is plan readable.

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The Layout tab allows you to adjust the properties for the label components.

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In this case, there is only one component, Surface Elevation.

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If needed, you can add another component by clicking Add,

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and then selecting Text, Line, Block, or Directional Arrow.

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To edit a component property, click in the Value cell, such as the Contents Value,

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and then click More (…).

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In the Text Composer Editor dialog, expand Properties to select the property to insert.

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Here, Surface Elevation is chosen.

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Then, edit the appropriate modifiers.

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In this case, set the Unit to foot, with a Precision of 1.

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Click the Add Properties arrow to place the property in the component display.

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Here, there is already a surface elevation, so you see this existing property.

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Rather than adding a new property, it is easiest to select and adjust the existing property to a Precision of 1.

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Notice that P2 still appears in the component display, but when you click Add Properties,

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it adjusts to P0 to reflect the change in precision.

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Remember that you must click Add Properties for edits to be applied.

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Click OK twice.

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The label style adjusts in the drawing and now excludes the trailing zeros.

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Once you create a label style, you can use or share it across drawings.

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Start a New drawing using a template.

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From the Manage tab, Styles panel, you can choose to Import styles or Reference them in from a specific drive,

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so that you always have the most up-to-date styles available.

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In this case, click Import, select the template to import from, and then click Open.

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In the Import Civil 3D Styles dialog, you can select or deselect the specific styles to be imported,

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with options to Deselect All or Select All.

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Additionally, expand the different styles to view additional details.

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In this case, click Select All, and then click OK.

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In the warning dialog, click OK to confirm the import.

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When it is complete, a dialog displays the results, including the number of styles imported and deleted.

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Click OK.

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As mentioned previously, the alternative is to Reference the styles, so that they update dynamically.

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In the Attach Referenced Template dialog, click Add.

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Then, in the Open Template File dialog, set the Files of type to Drawing Template (*.dwt).

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Select a template, and then click Open.

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In this case, because a metric template is selected,

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a warning alerts you that the drawing units do not match the current drawing. Click Continue.

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In the Attach Referenced Template dialog, you can now expand and select the styles you wish to reference in your drawing.

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In this example, click Select All, and then OK.

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This creates a reference to the selected template file that keeps the chosen styles up to date.