December 16, 2015

Revit: CAD Export Layer Mapping - Restore Subcategory Default

When editing a DWG/DXF Export Setup, you may have noticed that some subcategories have the layer name of the main category, enclosed in curly braces ("{" and "}") and italicized, and, if you change the layer name of the main category, these all automatically update to match that change in the main category. For example, using the Revit 2014 out-of-the-box US Imperial default.rte template, the Doors category looks like this:

Notice that the Elevation Swing and Plan Swing subcategories have { A-DOOR } in the Layer column, whereas the Panel subcategory just has A-DOOR. If the layer for the Doors main category is changed, the Elevation Swing and Plan Swing subcategories also change, but the Panel subcategory does not.

If you want a subcategory to be linked to the main category name, but it is not already so linked, you can do one of the following:
  • If there is already another subcategory so linked, you can copy the text in that subcategory, and then paste that value into the subcategory you wish to link. Be certain to copy the entire string, including the leading space characters.
  • If there is not already a linked subcategory, or you just prefer typing to cutting and pasting, type two space characters, an opening curly brace ("{"), one space character, the layer name as it currently appears in the main category, one space character and a closing curly brace ("}"). Once you press the ENTER key or click into another field, the text will italicize, letting you know you entered it correctly.
  • You can also just type two space characters, an opening curly brace ("{"), two space characters and a closing curly brace ("}") in the subcategory's Layer field, and then make a change to the main category's layer name, if that is easier for you. After you change the main categories layer name, you can change it back if you did not want to make a change to it.
As always, click on an image to see a larger version of it.

December 04, 2015

ACA: Underline in Tag But Not in Schedule III

This old post and this follow up post describe two ways to have a text property shown in a tag (such as a room name) be underlined in the tag, but not in a schedule table. The first post suggested adding a formula property, and concatenating %%u and the non-underlined property in the formula, and then using the formula property in the tag.

The second post accomplished the same thing by making a copy of the Property Data Format assigned to the text property and, in the copy, adding %%u in the Prefix field, and then assigning the new Property Data Format to the property in the Property Set Definition. When adding that property to a Schedule Table Style, the original, non-underlined Property Data Format would be used. The benefit of this method is that you do not need to make any changes to the view block used by the Schedule Tag's Multi-View Block Definition.

This all worked fine back in 2005/2006 when the articles were written, and for some time thereafter. I have not checked, but I suspect that the addition of multi-line attribute support for Multi-View Blocks (and, therefore, in Schedule Tags) in the 2009 release broke the recognition of %%u as a code to indicate starting (and stopping) an underlining of text. It certainly does not work in the 2016 release.

Fortunately, there is still a way to do this, and it can be used with either method. Just substitute \\L [the MText underline code] for %%u. For example, given a text property called Name, you could create a formula property that creates an underlined version of that property by using the formula
RESULT = "\\L" & "[Name]"
where "[Name]" is a properly created reference to the Name property.

Or, you could make a copy of the Property Data Format, such as Case - Upper, rename the copy Case - Upper - Underline, and add \\L to the Prefix property on the Formatting tab.