Symbol with rotating text

[ArchWestCY]

I am trying to make this Fire Alarm so that no matter what direction the wall is facing, the letter in the tag can be upright. I have tried several approaches with limited scess. The closest I have come is this Fire Alarm with a symbol and letter. If the letter is F it will turn in any direction. If the letter is H it won't turn at all.

Does anyone have a better idea for solving this problem?

Or, can anyone help figure out why my tag only works on F?

Thanks again for all the help.

BTY: this family was created in Revit MEP 2010

[mjdanowski]

In your annotation family.

[ArchWestCY]

This works, sort of. When I placed it on the south side of an East-West wall it showed the symbol pointing down and the Text right-side-up. But when I placed it on either side of a North-South wall, the test is still sideways. If I placed it on an angled wall, the text aligned with the wall. See image.
Does anyone have a family that will show the Text in the upright position, no matter what angle the family is placed at?
I would really like for the text to be a Label, so that I can change the letter with each different Type. Does 'Keep Text Readable" work with Labels?

[moliva]

one way of getting around the text orientation issue for labels located within the family is to use a tag instead. That way you place the family (on any wall) then tag it with it's symbolic element after. that way your tag can be upright regardless of which angle your family is oriented. Your family symbol is a bit different so I'm not convinced it will work the way you want.

[cfolden]

We have gotten around the problem by nesting two versions of the symbol within the family. Then we use a checkbox that swaps between the two symbols. So if it is on the north wall, you check a box and the symbol swaps so that it appears right on the drawing.

[RobertB]

Is it really that important? Why complicate the family when the text is still plan readable from bottom or right edge?

[mwiggins121466]

Is it really that important? Why complicate the family when the text is still plan readable from bottom or right edge?

I would have to agree with Robert

[ArchWestCY]

Thanks for all the great advice. Is it that important? Not to me, the 'Keep text readable' button seems to work well enough. We will see how my client responds to that change in their standard.

[RobertB]

Is it that important? Not to me, the 'Keep text readable' button seems to work well enough. We will see how my client responds to that change in their standard.That's a good point. If I were in your shoes I would point out how the client's standard works against the functionality of the product. Hopefully, if they recently changed to requiring BIM or Revit, they will see that they need to be flexible on their standards. :|

[rmcelvain.103137]

Hi all,

I am having the same discussion at our office currently. I have taken pretty much the same approach with adding the annotation angle parameter. I have an additional question though.

Is it possible to have revit query the rotation angle of the family once it is placed? If it can, there may be a way to use that property to automate the input of the rotation angle.

I do understand that this whole approach is pretty much non-conforming to the OOTB revit approach but it interests me nonetheless :)

Appreciate your thoughts!