Day 6 — The drawing set

Today the model becomes a document. This day is where Revit's payoff shows up: nothing you place on a sheet is retyped, because every annotation reads the model.

Project Information first

Manage → Project Information. Fill in project name, number, address, client, status. Title blocks read these fields as labels, so filling this in once populates every sheet.

The lesson generalizes: anything that appears on every sheet should come from one place. If you find yourself typing the project name into a text box, stop.

Sheets and title blocks

View → Sheet (or right-click Sheets in the browser → New Sheet). Pick a title block family and you get a virtual piece of paper.

• Sheet number and sheet name are properties of the sheet. Number them to a standard — A-101, A-102, A-201 — because the numbers drive sort order in your index and in the exported filenames.
• The title block is a family (.rfa) containing the border plus label elements. A label is bound to a parameter; it's not text. That's why sheet numbers appear automatically.
• To customize a title block, edit the family and swap the labels' bound parameters. Adding a firm logo means placing an image in the family, not on each sheet.

Placing views

Drag a view from the Project Browser onto the sheet. A few rules:

• A view can be placed on exactly one sheet. If you need it twice, duplicate the view. The exception is a Legend, which can go on many sheets — that's its whole reason for existing.
• The placed instance is a viewport, with its own type controlling the view title line, whether the title shows, and its text style.
• The view's scale determines how big it lands. Set scale in the view, not on the sheet.
• Once placed, a view in the browser shows its sheet number next to it. Views with nothing next to them aren't on a sheet — an easy way to spot what you've missed.

Guide grids: aligning views across sheets

View → Guide Grid creates a snapping grid you can assign to multiple sheets. Snap each view's crop to the same guide grid intersection and your plans land in the same place on every sheet — so a stack of printed drawings doesn't jump around when you flip pages. It's a small thing that reads as professional instantly.

The sheet list generates itself

View → Schedules → Sheet List. Fields: Sheet Number, Sheet Name, and whatever else you need. Place it on your cover sheet.

Now your drawing index is a live query. Add a sheet, the index updates. There is no excuse for a hand-typed drawing list.

Annotation: model elements vs. annotation elements

The distinction from Day 4 matters here:

• Model elements exist in 3D and appear in every view that sees them.
• Annotation elements — tags, dimensions, text, symbols, detail lines — live in one view only and scale with the view's scale.

Change a view from 1:100 to 1:50 and the annotation text stays the same printed size while the model gets bigger. That's the point, and it's why you must use annotation families for annotation.

Tags, not text

A tag reads a parameter off the element it points at. Change the door width in the model and the door tag changes. Type "3'-0"" into a text note and it becomes a lie the first time someone edits the door.

TG tags by category. Options bar controls leader on/off and orientation. If a tag shows ?, the parameter it wants is empty on that element. If a category has no loaded tag, Revit tells you and you load one.

Keynotes are tags driven by an external text file, giving numbered notes that are identical across the whole set. If your firm has a keynote file, use it.

Dimensioning like someone who's built a building

Dimensions are the part of a drawing set that gets scrutinized. Two rules:

1. Dimension to what gets built from it. Grid lines, structural faces, and critical clear dimensions — not whatever wall face happened to be under your cursor. A contractor sets out from grids.
2. String your dimensions in layers. Overall, then bay-to-bay (grid to grid), then within-bay. Three tiers, outermost first.

Practical tools:

• DI for aligned dimensions. Pick references, then click to place the string.
• Witness lines are the individual references. Select a dimension and drag the small blue grips to add, remove, or move a reference without redrawing the string. This is the skill that makes dimensioning fast.
• Set what a dimension picks up per-wall (Wall Faces, Wall Centerlines, Wall Faces: Core) in the Options bar before you dimension.
• A dimension can be locked to constrain the model. Powerful and dangerous — it's over-constraining by another name. RC reveals them.
• You cannot type over a dimension value. Revit won't let you lie about the model. You can add text prefixes/suffixes, or replace with text — but the number itself comes from the model. This is a feature.

Revisions, done properly

View → Revisions (Sheet Issues/Revisions). Define a revision: sequence, date, description, issued-to.

Then in a view, Annotate → Revision Cloud, draw the cloud, and set its Revision property to the one you defined. Tag it with a revision tag.

The payoff: the title block's revision schedule fills itself in on every sheet that contains a cloud from that revision. Mark a revision as Issued and it locks.

Drawing a "revision cloud" with detail lines produces a drawing that lies about its own revision history. Don't.

Exporting

PDF

Revit has native PDF export (File → Export → PDF) as well as printing to a PDF driver. Native export is better — it handles multi-sheet sets and filename patterns.

Things to get right:

• Select sheets, not views — use the Sheets tab and the "Show sheets in list" filter.
• Paper size and orientation per sheet size. Mismatched size is why your drawings come out tiny with a huge margin.
• Combine into one file vs. one file per sheet — the naming pattern option is worth configuring once.
• Hide crop boundaries, scope boxes, and unreferenced view tags in the export options. Otherwise your set has boxes all over it.
• Vector vs. raster processing — vector is sharp and smaller; raster is needed when you have transparency or shadows. Revit warns you.

DWG

File → Export → CAD Formats → DWG. The export setup controls layer mapping — which AutoCAD layer each Revit category lands on. Firms have a standard mapping file. Exporting without configuring it produces DWGs nobody downstream can use.

IFC and NWC

• IFC for handing the model to non-Revit software. Quality depends entirely on your category and property-set mapping. Test it early in a project, not the week of the deadline.
• NWC for Navisworks coordination and clash detection. Day 7.

See sheets and export for the settings that matter.

Today's exercise

Issue a set.

1. Fill in Project Information completely.
2. Create sheets:
   • A-001 Cover Sheet & Drawing Index
   • A-101 Level 1 Floor Plan
   • A-102 Level 2 Floor Plan
   • A-201 Exterior Elevations
   • A-301 Building Sections
   • A-501 Details
   • A-601 Schedules
3. Add a Guide Grid and assign it to A-101 and A-102. Snap both plans to the same intersection.
4. Place your views. Elevations: all four on A-201. Your section and stair section on A-301. The callout detail on A-501.
5. Put your room schedule and door schedule on A-601.
6. Create a Sheet List and place it on A-001.
7. Dimension the Level 1 plan in three tiers: overall, grid-to-grid, and interior partitions. Edit at least one string's witness lines.
8. Tag everything: rooms, doors, windows, your Day 4 casework. Confirm no tag shows ?.
9. Create a Legend showing your wall types, and place it on both A-101 and A-102 — proving legends can repeat.
10. Add a keynote or text note with a leader somewhere it's genuinely needed (a construction note, not a value that exists as data).
11. Create Revision 1 "Issued for Review", cloud a change on A-101, tag it, and confirm the title block revision block populates.
12. Export a multi-sheet PDF to Exports/. Open it. Look at every page like a reviewer would.

That PDF is the deliverable. Nine days ago you had nothing; you now have a coordinated drawing set generated from a single model.