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TEXTWELD LISP: Merge Text Into One MText, In Your Order

TEXTWELD merges separate Text and MText objects into a single MText, in the order you pick them, preserving each one’s formatting.

What TextWeld does

It is similar to the Express Tools TXT2MTXT command, but with control over the order and over whether each piece starts a new line or continues the previous one — which is what makes it usable on a schedule or a note block that has been drawn as thirty separate lines of text.

While picking: SPACE toggles between New Line and Same Line mode, U undoes the last pick, Shift-click appends the text but keeps the original in place, clicking empty space starts a window selection to add many at once, and Enter finishes.

How to use it

  1. Load the routine with APPLOAD, or put it on your support file search path.
  2. Type TEXTWELD.
  3. Pick the first text object — it becomes the new MText.
  4. Keep picking. Each is appended and the original removed. Press SPACE to switch between new line and same line.
  5. Move the mouse to position the result, and click to place it.

How it works

Formatting is preserved by writing the differences in as MText codes. Where a picked object differs from the MText being built, the difference is written in and wrapped in braces so it applies only to that piece:

\C<n>; colour · \H<n>x; height, as a multiple of the current height · \F<font>; font · \L \l underline on and off, converted from the old %%U codes

So a merged block of text keeps its varying sizes and colours rather than being flattened to the first object’s formatting — which is what happens if you simply concatenate the strings, and what makes a welded schedule look wrong afterwards.

Notes and limits

  • The first object picked becomes the MText, and sets the baseline formatting everything else is expressed relative to.
  • Originals are removed as they are appended, unless you shift-click.
  • The shift-click option needs Express Tools. Without it, everything else still works and shift is simply ignored.
  • Pick order is the reading order. That is the whole advantage over TXT2MTXT.

Download and details

NameTextWeld — merge text objects into one MText, in the order you pick them
DownloadTextWeld.lsp — 23.6 KB, plain AutoLISP source. Downloads directly; no zip to unpack.
TypeAutoCAD AutoLISP routine
CommandTEXTWELD
Requiresthe ActiveX layer (loaded automatically by the routine with vl-load-com).
Source size23.6 KB, 604 lines
Error handlingYes — a *error* handler restores every system variable it changed, on cancel as well as on error.
UndoThe whole operation is wrapped in a single undo group, so one U reverses all of it.
CompatibilityAutoCAD (any release with AutoLISP), BricsCAD, ZWCAD, GstarCAD, ProgeCAD and other IntelliCAD-based platforms. AutoCAD LT needs a LISP enabler. No .NET, no ObjectARX, no installer.
AuthorYZ, August 2026
LicenceFree to use, supplied “as is” with no warranty.

References