You can place a copy of some or all of an element's database attributes as text in the DGN file. The process of displaying attributes is really quite simple: An empty text node is placed and then designated as a displayable attribute text node. Selected attributes are loaded into the displayable attribute text node based on an SQL SELECT statement. If the database information changes or you change the columns selected by the SELECT statement, you can update the design by simply reloading the text nodes.

Different types of displayable attribute text nodes can be defined to display different combinations of attributes. The displayable attribute table specifies the display format for each type of displayable attribute text node.

The SQL SELECT statement for the displayable attribute type defined in the column determines the list of columns that are loaded. If no SELECT statement is defined, SELECT * is used.