Shop Drawing Template Editor: Property View

Knowledge Base Article  |  Stone & Tile Desktop

Applies to: Stone (Stone Only) and Stone & Tile  |  Last reviewed: June 2026

Overview

The Property View is the right-side control panel that appears when you select a cell inside the shop drawing template editor. It is the primary interface for customizing every visual and structural aspect of a selected cell — its text content, typography, background color, borders, size, image handling, and position within the title block grid.

Every field in the title block is a cell. Selecting a cell activates the Property View for that cell specifically. Changes made in the Property View apply only to the selected cell unless a merge span is involved. To affect multiple cells, each must be selected and edited individually, or the cells must be merged first using Row Span and Column Span. 

Property View at a Glance

The Property View is organized into distinct control groups. The table below provides a quick reference for every control, what it affects, and where to find detail in this article.

Text Content

The Text field at the top of the Property View displays the current content of the selected cell and allows you to type or edit it directly. This is used for static label text in the title block — fixed values that do not change per project, such as column headers (‘Job Name’, ‘Date’, ‘Sheet’), company slogans, or section divider labels.

Common uses for the Text field:

•   Column header labels: ‘Salesperson’, ‘PO Number’, ‘Revision’, ‘Drawn By’.

•   Company tagline or address below the logo cell.

•   Fixed instructional text: ‘Do not scale from drawing’, ‘All dimensions in inches’.

•   Section divider labels within a complex title block layout.

Font

The Font group controls all typographic properties of the text within the selected cell. Each property is independent — changing one does not reset any other.

Font Family

Sets the typeface used for all text in the selected cell. Any font installed on the local machine is available. The font renders in the generated PDF as long as it is available at generation time.

Font Style

Sets the text angle. Three options:

•   Normal: Standard upright text. Use for all standard title block fields.

•   Italic: Slanted text generated by the font’s built-in italic variant. Use for supplementary notes, legal disclaimers, or drawn-by fields where a visual distinction is helpful.

•   Oblique: Slanted text produced by mechanically skewing the upright characters, rather than using a dedicated italic variant. Visually similar to italic but distinct in origin. Use when a font does not have a native italic variant.

Font Size

Sets the point size of the text. Larger values increase the text. The cell must be large enough to display the text at the selected size — if the cell is too small, text will overflow or be clipped depending on the Wrap Text setting.

Typical font sizes for title block cells:

Font Weight

Controls the stroke thickness of the characters — how bold the text appears. Higher values produce heavier, bolder strokes. Not all fonts support the full weight range; for fonts with only Regular and Bold variants, intermediate weight values will snap to the nearest available weight.

•   Use heavier weight for column header labels to distinguish them visually from the field data below.

•   Use standard weight for data fields, date, sheet number, and job name.

•   Avoid mixing more than two weight levels in a single title block — it creates visual noise rather than hierarchy.

Font Color

Sets the colour of the text characters in the selected cell. The colour picker allows selection by hex value, RGB input, or from a colour swatch palette.

•   Standard practice: Black text on a white or light background for all data-bearing fields. High contrast is essential for legibility on the shop floor and in printed drawings.

•   Reversed text: White text on a dark background cell (set via Background) can be used for column headers to create a strong visual separator between header and data rows. This is a common title block convention in professional drawing packages.

•   Coloured text: Use sparingly. Colour is not reliably reproduced on all shop printers. Any information that depends solely on colour to convey meaning will be lost on a greyscale print.

Font Stretch

Controls the horizontal spacing between words within the cell. Higher stretch values increase the space between words; lower values compress it. This is a typographic fine-tuning control — most title block cells do not need adjustment from the default.

•   Use to fill a wider cell with short text without increasing font size.

•   Use to tighten spacing in a narrow cell where standard spacing causes text to wrap unexpectedly.

•   Do not use as a substitute for resizing the cell — extreme stretch values produce unnatural-looking text that is harder to read.

Cell Appearance

Background

Sets the fill colour of the selected cell. The colour picker works the same way as Font Color — hex value, RGB, or swatch. The background colour fills the entire cell, behind any text or image content.

•   White (default): Use for all standard data-entry fields.

•   Dark fill with reversed text: A common professional convention for column headers. Set Background to a dark colour and Font Color to white. Creates a strong visual separation between header rows and data rows.

•   Light tint: A subtle background tint (light grey or light blue) can distinguish a section of the title block — for example, a project information block vs. a company information block — without the high contrast of a dark header.

•   Greyscale compatibility: Background colours that rely on hue to communicate structure will lose that distinction on a greyscale print. Use colour to reinforce structure, not as the sole indicator of it.

Text Margin

Controls the internal padding between the cell boundary and the text content — the amount of space between the edge of the cell and where the text begins. Without adequate margin, text sits flush against the cell border and is difficult to read, particularly at small font sizes.

•   Increase text margin when text sits too close to a cell border or to an adjacent cell’s content.

•   Decrease text margin when a narrow cell needs to fit more text before wrapping.

•   Apply consistently across cells of the same type (all header cells at the same margin, all data cells at the same margin) to maintain a uniform, professional appearance.

Wrap Text

When enabled, any word that would extend past the right boundary of the cell wraps down to the next line within the same cell. When disabled, text that overflows the cell boundary is clipped or extends outside the cell, potentially overlapping adjacent cells.

•   Enable Wrap Text: For cells that will contain longer dynamic content where the exact character count is unknown at template-build time — job name, notes, address fields, custom fields with variable-length input.

•   Disable Wrap Text: For short fixed-label cells where wrapping would push the label to a second line unnecessarily — date, sheet number, initials. If Wrap Text is disabled on a cell, ensure the cell is wide enough to display the expected content at the set font size.

Image Fit

Controls how an image — typically the company logo — scales to fill the cell it is placed in. The Image Fit setting only applies to cells that contain an image element.

Alignment

Sets the horizontal and vertical position of the cell’s content within the cell boundary. Alignment is set using a 3×3 grid of icons that map to the nine possible combinations of horizontal (Left, Centre, Right) and vertical (Top, Middle, Bottom) positioning.

Borders

Each cell has four individually configurable borders: Left, Top, Right, and Bottom. Each border is set independently in the Property View, allowing any combination of visible and hidden edges. This enables title block layouts where certain internal grid lines are suppressed for a cleaner look, while the outer frame of the title block remains fully bordered.

Border Controls

Border Design Conventions

•   Outer frame: All four borders visible at a heavier weight. This creates the outer boundary of the title block.

•   Internal dividers: Borders between adjacent cells at a lighter weight. This separates fields without visually competing with the outer frame.

•   Header row separator: The bottom border of the header row — the row that labels the columns — is commonly set to a heavier weight or a distinct colour to visually separate the header from the data rows below. A blue bottom border on a header cell is a recognised convention in the MeasureSquare template system.

•   Suppressed internal borders: When two adjacent cells are visually intended to read as a single area (but are not structurally merged), hide the shared border — the right border of the left cell and/or the left border of the right cell — to create the appearance of a single wider field.

Cell Structure

Row Span

Sets the number of rows the selected cell merges across vertically. A Row Span of 1 is the default — the cell occupies one row. A Row Span of 2 means the cell stretches down to occupy two rows, absorbing the cell below it in the same column.

•   Use Row Span to create a tall company logo cell on the left side of the title block that spans all rows of the header area.

•   Use Row Span to create a wide label that needs vertical height — for example, a ‘Revision History’ label on the left side of a multi-row revision block.

•   When a Row Span is set, the cells absorbed into the merge are no longer independently selectable. Their content and styling are controlled by the spanning cell.

Column Span

Sets the number of columns the selected cell merges across horizontally. A Column Span of 1 is the default. A Column Span of 2 means the cell stretches right to occupy two columns, absorbing the adjacent cell in the same row.

•   Use Column Span to create a wide company name or project title cell that spans the full width of the title block.

•   Use Column Span to create a notes or disclaimer row at the bottom of the title block that spans all columns.

•   A cell can have both a Row Span greater than 1 and a Column Span greater than 1 simultaneously — it will occupy a rectangular block of rows × columns.

Line

The Line control affects table-wide border and line styling. Unlike the individual Left / Top / Right / Bottom border settings that apply to a single selected cell, the Line control sets properties that apply to the overall table grid — for example, the default line weight and style used for all internal cell dividers.

•   Use Line to set a consistent baseline style for all internal borders before making per-cell overrides.

•   Per-cell border settings take precedence over Line settings for individual edges.

•   If internal borders appear inconsistent across the title block, check the Line setting as a starting point before adjusting individual cell borders.

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