text format in column/beam tags

[kmarsh]

Below is a message from the general RS forum, which I agree should be a wishlist item. Our office standard is the same:

I know this is going to sound a little picky, but our current standard uses lower case "x" in steel section tags ie W18x40 instead of the capital "X" ie W24X40. Mainly because we think they read better with lower case x's. Is there an easy way to change how these tags look?
Thanks

[aaronrumple]

Open the associated catalog for this item and do a search and replace on the text. Should take just a few minutes to make this adjustment.

[kmarsh]

Aaron,
I located the W-wideflange.txt catalog file (by the way, you need to change the read-only attrib...) and changed all the X's to x's. Started up RS2 and laid out some columns and beams between them... the result was still an X in the beam tag.
Is there some other requirement? e.g., reloading the family (seems like this should be automatic when starting a fresh session of RS...?)
I did use one of the autoloaded families of W12X26 seems like if the catalog file controls display, then the tag should still have an x not an X.

Note: this solution works will all except the auto-loaded families. The W12X26 still comes out with an X even though I re-loaded the W12x14 through W12x35. Adding a W12x22 to the model, it comes out with the lower case x; but no the W12X26

[trialbyfire]

I know this is an old thread, but the problems still exist in RS2009, so I thought I'd follow up for anyone else who runs across it (like me!). Editing the txt file for x instead of X will effect all NEW WF beams you load into a project only. Once a family is loaded into a project file, it becomes part of that file. They don't "reload" each time you open Revit like an autocad xref does (that's one reason Revit files get so large). Fastest way I found to change the existing beam families in your project is to just expand the Families section of the project browser, and under Structural Framing, expand the "W-Wide Flange" section. There you should have a list of every beam size loaded in, showing the uppercase X. Just right click on each one and pick Rename, and change it to lowercase. You have to do it individually, but it goes very fast - only takes a minute.

[Asta04]

I know this is an old thread, but the problems still exist in RS2009, so I thought I'd follow up for anyone else who runs across it (like me!). Editing the txt file for x instead of X will effect all NEW WF beams you load into a project only. Once a family is loaded into a project file, it becomes part of that file. They don't "reload" each time you open Revit like an autocad xref does (that's one reason Revit files get so large). Fastest way I found to change the existing beam families in your project is to just expand the Families section of the project browser, and under Structural Framing, expand the "W-Wide Flange" section. There you should have a list of every beam size loaded in, showing the uppercase X. Just right click on each one and pick Rename, and change it to lowercase. You have to do it individually, but it goes very fast - only takes a minute.

This thread's quite old, but thanks for posting this. Our firm is running into the same issue.