Changing Label Appearance

In this exercise, you will change the appearance of the label for major station 15+00, creating a custom style
for this purpose.
For more information, see the AutoCAD Civil 3D Help topic Modifying Labels in a Drawing.
This exercise continues from Exercise 1: Moving Individual Labels (page 13).
To change the appearance of a label
1 Pan to the area around the alignment curve near circle C.
2 Ctrl+click the station label 15+00. Right-click and select Label Properties.
3 In the Properties palette on the Design tab, click the value for Major Station Label Style. Select Create/Edit
from the list.
4 In the Label Style dialog box, click the drop-down list and change the style to Perpendicular With Tick.
5 Click and select Create Child Of Current Selection.
6 In the Label Style Composer, on the Information tab, change the style name from Perpendicular With
Tick [Child] to Station Emphasis.
7 On the General tab, notice that the visibility of the label object as a whole is controlled here. The
individual label components may turned on or off on the Summary tab.
8 On the Layout tab, at the top of the Preview pane, select Major Station Label Style.
9 In Text properties, click the Color value (BYLAYER). Click . Change the text color to a bright color,
such as red.
Notice that your change is shown immediately in the Preview pane. This pane is very useful when you
are designing a label style. If you don’t like what you see in the preview, you can change it before saving
the style.
10 Click the Value column for the Contents property. Click .
11 In the Text Component Editor, in the preview window, change the STA text to STATION.
12 Apply the changes by clicking OK in the Text Component Editor, Label Style Composer and Label Style
dialog boxes. The station is now labeled STATION=15+00 in red, with a pink tick at the precise location.
The red text is a property of your new style, Station Emphasis. The tick is a property of the parent style,
Perpendicular With Tick.
13 Press Esc to deselect the label.
14 In the drawing window, Ctrl+click the label 14+00. Change its style to Perpendicular With Tick, using
the Properties palette.
Note that in the style collection displayed in the Properties palette, your new style appears nested under
its parent. You can also see this placement in Toolspace, on the Settings tab, under Alignment ➤ Label
Styles ➤ Station ➤ Major Station ➤ Perpendicular With Tick.
Notice that in the drawing, the STA=14+00 label is green, while the STATION=15+00 label is red. A child
style shares its basic properties with the parent style from which it was created. If a property value is
changed in the parent style, then the change also will be applied to the child style. If a property value
is changed in the child style, then the parent style is not affected.
14 | Chapter 2 Getting Started Tutorials
By creating a child style, you have created the station display you need, without affecting other parts
of the drawing. If you had instead changed the properties of the parent style, it would have automatically
changed the appearance of any other major stations using that style.
Next, you will set the parent style to override the color setting in the child style.
15 In Toolspace, on the Settings tab, expand the Alignment ➤ Label Styles ➤ Station ➤ Major Station
collections.
16 Right-click Perpendicular With Tick and select Edit.
17 In the Label Style Composer dialog box, click the Summary tab.
18 Expand the Component 1 property.
19 In the Text : Contents row, click in the Child Override column.
In the Child Override column, is displayed, indicating that the child’s previously independent
property has been overridden by the parent.
20 Click OK to close the Label Style Composer dialog box. Notice that the labels now read STA=14+00 and
STA=15+00, indicating that the text contents of the parent style have overridden those of the child
style. The colors are still different because the color was not overridden.