Eagle Vector font

[Madhumadi]

Hi ,

could some one tell me what is the purpose of using vector font in Eagle schematic/ board .
Does it have any effect on Gerber generation?
I read that it is recommended to use Vector font.

Thank you .

[rachaelp]

Hello,

You should use the vector font for any text which appears in the Gerbers, e.g. on your silkscreen, otherwise what you see in EAGLE might not be what you get on an actual board. Fortunately Autodesk added a nicer vector font in a recent version of v8 so it looks better.

In the schematic symbols use the proportional font as it looks better and makes it a lot nicer to read.

Best Regards,

Rachael

[Yansi]

There is another reason why to use proportional font in the schematic capture - if you export a PDF file, you can the use the SEARCH and the text is searchable.

For PCB you should prefer the vector font, for the reasons stated above.

[rachaelp]

There is another reason why to use proportional font in the schematic capture - if you export a PDF file, you can the use the SEARCH and the text is searchable.

Ah yes, that's a very good point!

[Madhumadi]

Thank you all exactly what i wanted to know 

[matseng]

Speaking of the vector font....  Doesn't it look better now in the current versions compared to the old 5/6/7?

[rachaelp]

Speaking of the vector font....  Doesn't it look better now in the current versions compared to the old 5/6/7?

Yes it does look better, they changed it in v8.3.0. Here is the section from the release notes:

* New EAGLE Vector Font:
  - EAGLE now uses a new internal vector font which is very similar to OSIFONT, a common font
    implementation in the CAD industry. It covers a bigger set of characters, in particular
    common Western European, Greek, Cyrillic, other Eastern European characters and many special
    symbols. The new font does not become active unless the option "Keep old vector font in
    this drawing" in Options/User interface is unchecked. For new designs, the new implementation
    is taken by default.
    We give special thanks to EAGLE long term customer Andreas Weidner, who designed this font for us.

[phil from seattle]

I agree what others have said - use vector for anything that will be printed on a PCB.  The reason is that proportional fonts are not standardized - the width and height on your PCB will be different from vendor to vendor so you can wind up with all sorts of text problems. Vector fonts are just lines so they will be printed exactly as you expect.

[silverdr]

Speaking of the "old" EAGLE vector font - is it anywhere available (other than inside my old EAGLE binaries)?