22243 - Convert a CAD annotation layer to a shapefile

1 of 2

http://support.esri.com/EN/knowledgebase/techarticles/detail/22243

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HowTo: Convert a CAD annotation layer to a shapefile

Article ID:

22243

Software:

ArcView GIS 3.2a, 3.3

Platforms:

Windows 98, NT 4.0, 2000

Summary

Instructions provided are for converting a CAD annotation layer to a line shapefile which is attributed with the CAD annotation text. The line shapefile can
then be labelled with the text string to mimic the CAD annotation layer.

Procedure

1. Open a View, and add the CAD annotation layer as a theme.

2. Click the Theme menu and choose Table.
3. With the Theme table active, click the Table menu and choose Properties.
4. The scrollable list at the bottom of this dialog box lists the fields in the active themes attribute table. Scroll down to the field called TEXT and check
the VISIBLE property on. Click OK.
5. Scroll to view the TEXT attribute for each annotation.
6. Click the View containing the annotation layer to make it active.
7. Click Theme > Convert to Shapefile and create a new shapefile. This shapefile will contain a polyline for each of the original annotations and it will be
attributed with the text string displayed in the original annotation.
8. When prompted whether to add the new shapefile to the view, click YES.
9. Check the new shapefile theme on and make it active. Optionally, turn off or remove the CAD annotation from the view.
10. Click the Theme menu and choose Properties.
11. Click the Text Labels option.
12. Set the Label Field dropdown list to TEXT.
13. Check the Scale Symbols option and click OK.
14. The interactive label tool or the auto label function can now be used to label the lines with the text from the TEXT field. The auto-label dialog can be
found by clicking Theme > Auto-label.

Created: 4/17/2002
Last Modified: 3/26/2003
Article Rating:

(2)

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Comments
By Anonymous - 01/05/2009 8:00 AM
The article needs to be updated.
Is there a tool that can accomplish this task in 9.2?
Rating:
By Anonymous - 12/19/2008 12:23 PM
The article needs to be updated.

4/2/2016 5:59 PM

22243 - Convert a CAD annotation layer to a shapefile

2 of 2

http://support.esri.com/EN/knowledgebase/techarticles/detail/22243

This is a great article. Can you update this? Is there a way to create this same type of line shapefile with the annotation text in an attribute field using
ArcGIS 9.x?
Rating:

4/2/2016 5:59 PM