Text Masking - Making Leaders Disappear Since 2000.

This week's post is short and sweet, due to a little craziness during the week, but I still hope you all find it enjoyable and helpful!

The simplest things can drive you crazy,  One I encountered in Autodesk Inventor was a leader that seemed to randomly disappear.  It would just stop in one place, and start in another.

There seemed to be absolutely no good reason for it.

Why is this leader cut off?

It can be really puzzling.  The first time I encountered it, it completely threw me off.  It took a little bit of clicking and dragging before it finally dawned on me.

If you study the image above, you can actually see it, if you know what to look for.

The text box covered up the leader for the balloon.  Because of that, the masking "erases" the leader.  Dragging the leader out of the box, or dragging the box away from the leader, cause the leader to reappear.

And the truth of the fact was I had been a little careless and "whipped" the text box and made it far larger than it needed to be.

Here, I've shrunk the box to give the leader room.

It's so simple, yet at the same time, it can be so frustrating.  But in the end, it's really simple to fix.

So what's my suggestion?

Keep your eyes open, of course!  But also be aware that dragging a huge text box, because "it doesn't make that big a difference" can be asking for trouble.

Why?  It can cause a huge difference!  But just be aware, and know what to look for, and a big frustration can be reduced to just an "oops".