# STYLE in AutoCAD: text styles

> How AutoCAD's STYLE (ST) manages text styles: new, rename, delete, set current, a fixed height, and what a style does to TEXT and MTEXT. Try it free online.

STYLE manages the drawing's text styles: what a text is written with. Every text, multiline text and attribute has a style, and new ones take the current style, Standard in a new drawing. AutoCAD's STYLE opens the Text Style dialog; MellowCAD has none yet, so STYLE opens the text table of the Styles palette, where [`DIMSTYLE`](https://mellowcad.com/docs/commands/dimstyle.md)'s dimension styles are too. A selection made before it is dropped, as the dialog drops it, and typed with an apostrophe inside a command, `'STYLE`, it opens without ending that command.

The table lists the styles with the current one marked. New makes a copy of the selected style, named `style1`, `style2`… the first free name, and makes it current. Set Current makes a style current; its name can be retyped, and a name already in use, in any case, is refused, as AutoCAD refuses it. Delete removes a style, but never Standard, the current style or one in use. Height gives a style a fixed height: 0, the default, leaves it free, so [`TEXT`](https://mellowcad.com/docs/commands/text.md) asks for one each time; with a height set, TEXT does not ask. Every change is a step that `U` takes back. With texts selected, the Style row of the Properties palette gives them another style, in one step.

- **Command:** `STYLE`
- **Aliases:** `ST`, `DDSTYLE`
- **Panel:** [Annotate](https://mellowcad.com/docs/commands.md#annotate)
- **Try it:** [Open the editor](/draw), type `ST` and press Enter.

## At the command line

The engine draws it and writes its history as you would type it: the prompts in AutoCAD 2027's order, with the same option letters.

A nameplate: STYLE, then TEXT, whose Style ? lists the drawing's style, Standard in Arial, and the plate's name written in it.

```text
Command: STYLE
Command: TEXT
Current text style:  "Standard"  Text height:  2.50  Annotative:  No  Justify:  Left
Specify start point of text or [Justify/Style]: S
Enter style name or [?] <Standard>: ?
Text styles:
Style name: "Standard"    Font typeface: Arial
   Height: 0.00  Width factor: 1.00  Obliquing angle: 0
   Generation: Normal
Current text style: "Standard"
Current text style:  "Standard"  Text height:  2.50  Annotative:  No  Justify:  Left
Specify start point of text or [Justify/Style]: J
Enter an option [Left/Center/Right/Middle/TL/TC/TR/ML/MC/MR/BL/BC/BR]: MC
Specify middle point of text: 50,10
Specify height <2.50>: 6
Specify rotation angle of text <0>: 0
Enter text: PLATE
Enter text:
```

## What it does not do yet

The Text Style dialog and its preview: STYLE opens the Styles palette instead. Font, font style and big font, width factor, oblique angle, and the Upside down, Backwards and Vertical effects: every style is drawn in Arial, upright, at width 1. Annotative styles, and the Annotative style a new AutoCAD drawing holds beside Standard. `-STYLE`, which asks it all at the command line.

[What it does and still lacks, in detail (in English)](https://github.com/ovelilla/mellowcad/blob/main/docs/coverage/dimensions.md#style--st--ddstyle--es-estilo--est--estilodd--pt-br-estilo--et--ddstyle)

## Questions

### What is the shortcut for STYLE in AutoCAD?

`ST`, then Enter or Space; `DDSTYLE` too. `_STYLE` works in any language of AutoCAD.

### How do I change the text style in AutoCAD?

For new text, make the style current in the Styles palette that STYLE opens, or with [`TEXT`](https://mellowcad.com/docs/commands/text.md)'s `Style` option. For text already written, select it and choose the style in the Style row of the Properties palette.

### How do I change the font of a text style?

In AutoCAD, in the Text Style dialog's Font Name. Not yet here: every style is drawn in Arial, and a style differs only in its name and its height.

### Why does TEXT not ask for the height?

The current style has a height of its own. Set its height to 0 in the Styles palette and [`TEXT`](https://mellowcad.com/docs/commands/text.md) asks for the height again, offering the last one used.

## Related commands

- [TEXT in AutoCAD](https://mellowcad.com/docs/commands/text.md)
- [MTEXT in AutoCAD](https://mellowcad.com/docs/commands/mtext.md)
- [DIMSTYLE in AutoCAD](https://mellowcad.com/docs/commands/dimstyle.md)
- [TEXTEDIT in AutoCAD](https://mellowcad.com/docs/commands/textedit.md)