A one-minute check before sending
- Type
STYLEand go through the styles. If one uses an old Hebrew .shx font such as hebtxt, miryl or sivan_m, the drawing is at risk. The full list shows how each font stored Hebrew. - Temporarily switch that style's font to Arial. What you see now is close to what someone without the font will see: if the labels break for you, they will break for them.
- Type
Uto undo the switch.
Send the fonts with the drawing
If the recipient only needs to look or plot, you can send the fonts with the drawing. The ETRANSMIT command packs a drawing with its fonts. It sometimes misses unusual fonts, so check that the .shx files really are in the package, and add them by hand if not.
Tell the recipient to put the .shx files in the same folder as the drawing. AutoCAD looks there first, so your font wins even if they have a different font with the same name.
This works only as far as the next sender. Everyone who receives the drawing after that needs the same fonts again, and inside the file the text is still not stored as Hebrew.
Fix the text before sending
If the drawing will keep moving between offices, or is going abroad to someone whose Windows is not set up for Hebrew, it is better for the Hebrew to be stored as Hebrew, in a font everyone has. The guide to converting to Arial explains what has to change on the way, and why swapping the font alone is not enough.
Gibberish's repair does that for the whole drawing at once and leaves every label where it was. The plugin that runs it from inside AutoCAD is coming soon. Join the waiting list and we'll let you know when you can download it. You can already check a whole drawing for free and see some of its labels before and after the repair, or decode single labels.
Quick questions
What if I send a PDF?
A PDF shows what your computer draws, so for viewing it is usually safe. Open it before you send it: in AutoCAD 2025 the screen and the PDF can differ, as the guide to reversed Hebrew explains. But anyone who needs to work on the drawing needs the DWG, and the question comes back with it.
The recipient abroad sees different symbols from the ones we see in the office.
For labels stored as DOS codes, the symbol that appears depends on Windows' language settings, so the same drawing looks different on two computers. One more reason to store Hebrew as Hebrew rather than rely on what the recipient has installed and set up.
How do we prevent this in new drawings?
Give new styles a Unicode font such as Arial rather than an old Hebrew .shx font. Then whatever is typed is stored as Hebrew from the start. Watch only the marks at the edge of a label, such as colons and numbering, which can jump to the other end.