DIMNOTE adds one of the stock abbreviations — TYP., CLR., V.I.F. and the rest — to a dimension, either alongside the figure or on a second line under it. Typing them by hand is how you end up with TYP, TYP. and Typ. in the same drawing.
What DimNote does
DIMFLIP turns a dimension round so it measures from the other end — useful when the arrows and text end up on the wrong side of a tight dimension.
How to use it
- Load the routine with
APPLOAD, or put it on your support file search path. - Type
DIMNOTEand pick a dimension. - Choose the note and whether it goes beside the figure or below it.
- Type
DIMFLIPand pick a linear dimension to reverse it.
How it works
The measurement stays live. A dimension’s text override is DXF group 1. Leaving it empty means “use the measured value”; putting <> in it means the same thing but lets you add text around it. So TYP. beside the figure is stored as <> TYP. and the measurement still updates when the geometry moves.
Two control sequences matter. \X splits the text — everything after it goes below the line. \P is an ordinary line break.
So the first note placed below uses \X, and any note after that uses \P, because a second \X would be ignored. That is the one piece of real cleverness in the routine.
The dialog is embedded. It is written to a temporary file only while it is on screen, so there is no .dcl to find on the support path or lose.
Notes and limits
- The measurement is never replaced, only annotated — so
DIMTATTLEwill not flag these as overridden values. - DIMFLIP is for linear dimensions. On angular and ordinate dimensions, groups 13 and 14 do not mean what they mean on a linear one, and flipping them produces nonsense.
- An empty note is rejected rather than placed.
- One undo group per operation.
Download and details
| Name | DimNote — add standard notes to dimensions, and flip them |
| Download | DimNote.lsp — 12.8 KB, plain AutoLISP source. Downloads directly; no zip to unpack. |
| Type | AutoCAD AutoLISP routine |
| Commands | DIMFLIP, DIMNOTE |
| Requires | nothing extra — the dialog is written to a temporary file at run time and deleted again, so there is no .dcl to install. |
| Source size | 12.8 KB, 305 lines |
| Error handling | Yes — a *error* handler restores every system variable it changed, on cancel as well as on error. |
| Undo | The whole operation is wrapped in a single undo group, so one U reverses all of it. |
| Compatibility | AutoCAD (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. |
| Author | YZ, August 2026 |
| Licence | Free to use, supplied “as is” with no warranty. |
References
- DIMTATTLE LISP — find dimensions whose text really was replaced
- DIMCENTRE LISP — extension lines drawn as centrelines
- Engineering drawing abbreviations — an A-Z list of 369 of them
- More free AutoLISP routines on this site
- Wisey’s Steel Shapes — free structural steel section drawing program