Large amounts of linked acadtext not plotting

[jrichardson]

We usually have large amounts of General Structural Notes on our lead sheet that will consist of 4 to 5 rows of columns across most of the sheet. It does not appear that Revit is capable of doing this easily and keep the formating of the text. If anyone has done this I would love the tips. My solution was to do it the way we would in AutoCAD then link it into a drafting view. This shows up fine on screen but will not plot. I have tried switching the fonts around but does not seem to help. One thing that I noticed was if I plot as vector it will not plot but my 3d view will. If I switch it to Raster it will plot but my 3d view will not.

[clay_hickling]

We are in a similar boat. I am trying to setup our structural notes for Revit.
Our current process involves using MSword to create a series of notes in a column format suitable for inserting as an OLE into Autocad.
Revit does not appear to have that functionality.
So we are looking at ways of still utilising the word method to create the notes and then bring it into Revit.
- If I try to simply copy from Word and paste to a text note in Revit I start to loose some formatting.
- I could always create an image of the word document and insert it in a Revit drafting view but you would not be able to edit it. You need to go back to original and then reinsert the image.

Any suggestions would be appreciated?

[hhall]

The following is a procedure we use to greate or general notes sheet.

Creating the General Notes Sheet

The General Notes Sheet is created and assembled the same way a Section/Detail Sheet is. The individual note sets are brought into a drafting view and dragged onto the sheet. One difference is that the individual note sets are turned into groups and are loaded into the model (similar to families).

Setting up the General Notes Sheet this way has several advantages.
1. This allows for all the deliverable drawings to be in one file. You don’t have to switch to AutoCAD to edit the General Notes.
2. Efficient plotting and uniform drawings.
3. The individual note sets are fully editable within revit.
4. The general note groups are part of the library. They can be created once and used by everyone.

Disadvantages
1. The template groups must be created and located in the folder that everyone has access to.
2. Editing of the general notes has to be done in Revit. If the notes were edited in word, the Revit modeler would need to create the project specific group and import them into the model.
3. Revit cannot do tables like Word. The tables need to be drawn in with Revit after the text in pasted in and manipulated. This would be less of a problem after the master template is created.
4. There are specific rules on how groups are inserted onto the sheets. Some groups can be loaded directly on the sheet and other groups have to be loaded via drafting views.

General Procedure

Creating Individual General Note Template with Revit
Under “Project Browser” go to Drafting Views
Under the “View” Design Bar select Drafting View
Name view STEEL, CONCRETE, Etc.
Set scale
Click OK
Open Microsoft Word and open general notes document
Highlight the text and press Ctrl + C to copy
Go to created Drafting View
Under the “Basics” Design Bar select Text
Move curser to drafting view and click in the model window
Press Ctrl + V to paste the text in the drafting view
Press ZE to resize the view
Modify, move and shift the text for presentation. Notice that the tables are disorganized and need to be fixed.
To re-create the tables, use “Detail Lines” and create boxes, column and row lines.
Turn drafting view into a “Group”
The text should be formatted and the tables should be redrawn before turning this into a group.
Go to the drafting view and select all the text and table lines with the mouse (they should be highlighted).
On the Toolbar click the “Group” button. All the text should turn red and a dashed border should appear.
This Drafting View is now a group and can be saved to the library.
To save group go to File and select Save to Library and select Save Group.
Save file to the folder and give it the same name as the Drafting View name.
The edit the text or tables click on the text and several new buttons appear on the toolbar. Select the Edit Group button and make changes

Creating the General Notes Sheet
Under “Project Browser” go to Drafting Views
Under the “View” Design Bar select Drafting View
Name view.
Set scale
Click OK
Load selected Groups
Go to File and select Load from Library and select Load Group.
Select the groups from the library folder and click OPEN
In the Project Browser Window scroll down to the Groups folder and you should see the new groups you loaded
To load group in the drafting view you crated, just drag and drop.
Now you just load the General Notes sheet by dragging and dropping the views onto the sheet.

[Paul Andersen]

Are you using the groups for anything aside from loading the blocks of notes into other projects?

If not, you can simply insert the drafting views from your general notes project to your new project using the File -> Insert From File -> Views... command. Then simply drag the drafting views from the project browser onto your sheet to composite your general notes.

You can also type new note blocks in a drafting view in any project and add them to your general notes project by using the File -> Save to Library -> Save Views... command.

This would at least wipe out several steps of your general procedure and eliminate disadvantage number 4 unless I'm missing something.