When someone says... "Revit brings them in as 'Blocks'" what is meant.

[mdhutchinson]

If some one says... "... Revit brings them in as blocks... what would they mean?

 a block  is an AutoCAD object type.

[L.Maas]

I think most people would make an analogy to a block when they talk about families

[chrisplyler]

What are they talking about? Revit brings them in as blocks? What is THEM? Revit brings WHAT in as blocks?

[SteveKStafford]

To help people understand the difference between Linking and ImportingCAD files into Revit I've told people, that also understand AutoCAD, that importing a CAD file is similar to inserting a Block Reference where Linking a CAD file is like inserting an External Reference.

If you are not familiar with AutoCAD, a block is similar to Microstation cells, SketchUp components and Revit Families. They are all based on separate files that are loaded into other files to represent things that need to be repeated more efficiently than drawing each of them from scratch, over and over. A desk, chair, column, room tag, north arrow, cabinet, tree, bench, curb, window, door and many other things are examples of a block, cell, component or family.