Revit screwed me - incompatible file - how do I copy views?

[mcolonna]

reOpened the incompatible file and detatched from central but want to take the views i created and copy the into the central file. any idea how to do this?

[bregnier]

Drafting views and schedules can be transferred using the "insert views from file" dialog. For views cut from the model you will have to recreate the view in the new file and then copy the annotations over from the other file manually - grouping them first can help keep things organized. If there's a lot of visibility control going on you can make view templates and then use transfer project settings to get the templates into the new file.

I assume you're making a new local before doing this - working directly in the central file can cause the same kinds of incompatible issues you had before. Making a new local on a frequent (if not daily) basis can also help to avoid these sorts of issues, as does saving to central frequently. If you have multiple views created in your local that were never saved back to central that's probably too long.

[mcolonna]

thanks for the reply. this works for schedules and drafting views. what about 3D views?

[bregnier]

That's covered in the above post as well... unfortunately you'll have to manually recreate the view (transferred view templates can aid in this) and then use "insert 2d elements from file" to copy over the annotations.

[twiceroadsfool]

If you grab the crop region of the 3D view, you can very often Copy and Paste between the two projects with it, and the 3D view will head straight in to the project browser. Then you go BACK, and grab any annotations/notes/dims and copy and paste those WITHIN the view. I find typically there isnt a view you can restore in minutes, if you have it in a backup file. If you cant, theres generally something else wrong.

And FWIW (call me conservative) i also generally find its almost always operator error when "Revit screws you" and says your file is incompatible with the central file. It typically happens for one of a few reasons:

1. As mentioned, someone working in the central file. Although in MOST cases, it will just warn you when you go to save, and ask you to Save-as to make a local, THEN SWC. I think if you make some pretty invalidating changes though, it can boot someone else.

2. Multiple users workstations have the same username in the Options dialogue in Revit. This WILL let them both check out (touch) the same sand in the sandbox, and it will kick someones behind on a first-come-first-serve basis. Second one to SWC will get told to (no pun intended) pound sand.

3. Someone upgrades the central file, or someones in a different build of Revit.

4. Someone replaces the central file with another one (they took it home for the night to work on it and someone was in a local when they replaced it).

5. Strange IT/networking issues with permissions and the like.

But, ive never seen it actually just "make a file incompatible,"

I hope this helps shed some lights. :)