Click Here to Download the Tutorial 9 Revit Template to use with this tutorial 👈⏩💾.

Tutorial 9 – Create Smart Schedules

Alright this is where we start to make our template smart. Smart schedules are schedules that will support you while you are designing, kind of like a supporting cast.  These schedules will be used internally to make you a better designer and to give you the ability to hide equipment in your MEP schedules.

The first schedule we are going to create is a Level Schedule. 

This is a tool that you can use to quickly see the height of every level in your project.

Way back when we created the Equipment Schedule I had you right-click the project browser which is still a great choice, but I will use the Schedule button on the View ribbon this time.

Why the View ribbon?  To Revit everything that goes on a sheet is a view, legends, schedules, details, floor plans, elevations, 3D, to Revit those are all views, just different types of views.

For category, select Levels.

For name, let’s change the name to Level Schedule.

Then click OK.

Click Here to Download the Tutorial 7 Revit Template to use with this tutorial👈⏩💾.

Tutorial 7 - Create a Title Block

We have made some incredible progress in only six tutorials and now we will start to bring everything together with our own personalized title block.  Title blocks come in many shapes and sizes and act like a giant business card for architectural design services.  They are almost always branded, there is no industry standard dictating where each element must be placed, and they are one of the few opportunities where you are sharing your company with the world.

In this tutorial we will go over the steps to make your own custom Revit title block as well as learn a lot of Revit concepts.  I will try to keep it simple while also covering all the main components so you have all the skills you need to build your perfect title block.  We will include each of the following sections in our title block.

Designer Info - Includes company logo, company name, company address and company contact info.

Project Info - Includes project name and project address.

Submittals - A spreadsheet like area typically with grid lines that displays the name and date of each submission.

Sheet Issues/Revision Schedule - Revit has a built-in feature called Revisions that allows you to enter the information about a revision, mark a revision as issued, and control the visibility of Revision Clouds and tags.

Management Info - Includes Drawn By, Checked By, Designed By and/or Approved By parameters which are all standard Revit parameters that are included in every Sheet.

Sheet Name

Sheet Number

Click Here to Download the Tutorial 6 Revit Template to use with this tutorial 👈⏩💾.

Tutorial 6 - Create an Elevation Mark

When we last left off, we had just placed our Section View onto our sheet and finished our Section Tag.  Our model was really starting to look good. 

I now notice this erratic line in our Section View, let’s fix that first.

The line is actually the Level and if you are curious why it is not being cropped by the Crop Region, well you already know.

Levels are Annotations, and like all other Annotations they cannot be partially cropped by Crop Regions.

So we will use the Visibility/Graphics Overrides instead.

Click Here to Download the Tutorial 5 Revit Template to use with this tutorial 👈⏩💾. 

Tutorial 5 - Create a Section Marker

Our last blog ended with our shiny new View Titles under each View.  I also re-arranged the views to prepare them to be placed with our Titleblock.  In this Blog we will start by Creating a Section Marker for our Section View.  We will see where it goes from there…

The Section View Marker is the last unfinished line in our current model, and if you are wondering where it is, it is the one in the Equipment Plan view.

Click Here to Download the Tutorial 4 Revit Template to use with this tutorial 👈⏩💾.

Tutorial 4 - Create a View Title

Alright welcome back, this week we are going to create a View Title.  What is a View Title? In Revit, each view can have a title that can contains the view name, the view scale, the detail number and the sheet number.

It will replace these unfinished looking lines in front of our Views and afterwards it will look great.  

But before we can start working on our View Title, I want to explain the difference between Viewports and the View Title.  The wide unfinished lines that are below each of our views are the View Titles, the titles of the Viewports.  When you add a view to a sheet, a Viewport displays on the sheet to represent the view. 

Viewports apply only to project drawings, such as floor plans, elevations, sections, and 3D views. They do not apply to schedules.

Viewports don't contain any settings or options to control what the View looks like, instead they are just a few settings that control what the View Title looks like, and they have no control over the View itself. 

The View is controlled by the Properties window when the view is selected.  When you want to Save the settings in the Properties window and use them on other views, there is something called View Templates and they are great.  We will get to those in a later blog post since they are a must have for any professional.

Let's start by selecting the Equipment Plan, once you have it selected your Properties window should look like the one to the right.

Next click Edit Type to open the Viewport Type Properties.