Revit SP.Writer - Installation questions

[mrauscher]

Hi, not sure if this has been discussed already. I have done searches through all Revit forums, but I am currently only seeing 12 threads in the Revit A-General forum (???).

Anyways, I have downloaded the Revit SP.Writer from Openrevit.com in hopes that it will allow me and my office BIM team to easily create, manage, and deploy shared parameters in our new 2012 office template.

My problem may be a simple one (I'm not a tech-head). I have downloaded the file and it has simply given me a WinZip file. What do I do with it now? How do I take the WinZip file and use it with Excel to load in the Shared Parameter .txt file?

The Revit Add-In portion of the install is handled by my IT department and I do not have access/permissions to do that. However, I thought I would try out the Excel portion of the Add-In before we install it into Revit.

If this question is in the wrong forum, please feel free to move it, dear moderators.

Thanks a bundle everyone. Hopefully someone out there can help me out.

Cheers,
Maria

[mrauscher]

Okay, we figured this out, so if anyone is curious, I'll explain:

1) open Excel
2) Open file "Revit_SP.Writer-v0.2.0.zip" (this is the file that downloaded from OpenRevit.com)
3)Excel gives a warning about the file extension not matching the file format. Hit YES to open anyways
4)I get a Security Warning "Macros have been disabled" at the top of my sheet. Click the Options button and choose Enable this Content. Then OK.
5)now this awesome Shared Parameter file is ready to go!

I think from this point forward, if you want to edit your Shared Parameter (SP) file, just clear the sheet and import your shared parameter .txt file. Now you can add parameters and export parameter groups (for example, I plan on exporting all the parameters used in my door families and only loading that file - the parameters are identicle to our Office standard SP file, so they can talk to each other in the projects.)

As for the Revit Add in portion of this download, we are still working on this. It appears we have an Extensions manager in our 2011 versions, but our 2012 do not. We are investigating the subscription centre. I'll report back once we get it sorted.

This makes me very happy and excited!

[mrauscher]

The Revit Add in installation was simple, once we found the hidden folders on the C drive.
The instructions from Openrevit.com work beautifully.

Easy parameters for all! Huzzah!