topic Re: View Reference Annotation Drag mark in Revit MEP Forum

View Reference Annotation Drag mark

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 22:16:03 GMT

Hi Community, this is with reference to the Drag Mark arrow on the View Reference tag.- is there a way to fix the position of the drag mark, as when inserted onto a view, the drag arrow is outside the annotation cop region & consequently the View Reference is not visible on the sheet.

I have locked the Reference Planes thinking this would fix but no.

Re: View Reference Annotation Drag mark

Anonymous — Fri, 24 Jan 2014 15:52:01 GMT

I have the same issue. I would like to put a view reference or two in the drafting view I use for syncing with the central file. The drag point appears 1'-6" away from the annotation graphics. This is no big deal if the view is a small scale like 1/16"=1'-0", but my drafting view is a scale of 12"=1'-0" and the drag point is way far away. If you do a zoom extents, you can see it is way the heck out there (see image below). Therefore I can't rely on a quick zoom extents (ZE) to get my view ready for syncing and for a nice thumbnail on my Recent Files page.

I tried messing with the origin and placement of the referenece planes inside the family, but nothing worked.

I tried to trick Revit by creating a generic annotation family and changing it to be a view reference. After I created the generic annotation, I placed it in my project's drafting view. The drag point was right there on the text (beautiful). I then changed that family to be a view reference, reloaded it, and boom, the drag point dropped down 1'-6" below the annotation. What the heck? Why? I'm sure there is a good reason

Re: View Reference Annotation Drag mark

klaus.schumann — Tue, 28 Jan 2014 10:20:53 GMT

Hi Ali,

Would you be able to attach a small sample RVT file which displays this issue please? We'd like to investigate a little further about how to prevent/go around this.

Looking forward to your reply.

Thanks,

Klaus

Re: View Reference Annotation Drag mark

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Jan 2014 22:21:00 GMT

I have uploaded the problem in a simple RVT file, using the metric template & you can see the View Reference when rotated in the vertical the Drag Arrow does not stay with the label.

Re: View Reference Annotation Drag mark

klaus.schumann — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 16:02:59 GMT

Hi Ali, thanks for supplying the sample model..

I did a quick check and managed to see the issue. I have informed our developers about this as it does look strange.

What you can do in the meantime is to Duplicate the Family for the rotated View Reference Tag, then edit the new family and move the text upwards away from the reference planes. When you save and load the modified family, the Drag mark will move in closer to the Reference Tag allowing a more coherent Zoom Extents.

http://screencast.com/t/sdS2OTMRV

Re: View Reference Annotation Drag mark

Anonymous — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 21:41:39 GMT

Hi Klaus, for that example it works, but not in my project.

I think I'll redo the family.

Re: View Reference Annotation Drag mark

Anonymous — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 22:33:13 GMT

I've redone the tag from the Annotation template, saved over & loaded it into my project - which has reset the Drag mark to its proper position underneather the Tag > which performs correctly now.

It looks like the Tag if modified within the Project behaves differently.

Re: View Reference Annotation Drag mark

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 18:52:50 GMT

Hello there,

I ran into the same problem as describe above. Can you please explain how you fix it? As I switched the anotation family into view ref. category, I have the same problem again. Thanks.

Re: View Reference Annotation Drag mark

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 23:34:21 GMT

Read post above yours.

Re: View Reference Annotation Drag mark

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Jul 2014 00:19:39 GMT

I have not been able to fix it. It is just one of those Revit things I have learned to live with.

Scott MacKenzie
BIM Manager
Stantec Architecture

Re: View Reference Annotation Drag mark

Anonymous — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 16:46:15 GMT

ignore!

Re: View Reference Annotation Drag mark

Anonymous — Wed, 29 Jul 2015 15:39:12 GMT

alijax,
I am unable to replicate your results. No mater how I create the family the move grip is in the same location. Matter of fact, even if I start a completely new project from scratch (no template) and there isn't even a View Reference family loaded yet the tag has the same issue.

This leads me to believe it might have more to do with the odd way this annotation family works. It seems more akin to Callouts, View Titles, and other system families then a typical annotation. None the less you say you found a way so I'm curious if you could elaborate more on the subject.

Re: View Reference Annotation Drag mark

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 17:14:21 GMT

Hi - I'm checking to see if AutoDesk has solved this glitch yet? Or maybe someone else has found a work around that actually works. Seems like none the earlier solutions to attempt to fix this have worked for me or others. It looks like it's been a problem since the 2012/2013 release of Revit.

It's a pretty annoying issue and seems like it shouldn't take AutoDesk 3 years to fix.....

Re: View Reference Annotation Drag mark

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 20:10:58 GMT

No it was’nt fixed, it would be nice if there is a place holder for the
Drag Arrow.

--

Kind Regards,

Ali Jackson

Senior Revit Designer

eCubed Building Workshop Ltd

1 centre street, freemans bay, auckland 1010

po box 91675, victoria street west, auckland 1142

t. 64 9 3030007 ext.713 f. 64 9 3030017 m. 021 201 6286
www.e3bw.co.nz

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Re: View Reference Annotation Drag mark

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 15:58:04 GMT

Hello Ali,
two years later and I've been trying to get this to work the same way you tried. but no luck. would you be able to share your modified view reference family if it is working?
Thanks a billion!

Re: View Reference Annotation Drag mark

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 16:01:56 GMT

It didn't work. Whoever has it worked would not share their ideas.

Re: View Reference Annotation Drag mark

aaronwagner — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 18:20:47 GMT

Unfortunately this is a long-standing issue. We (the community) have so far been able to determine it's somewhat affected by the scale as well as where the tag exists in relation to the crop region.

Typically, annotation families will set their center and/or origin point based on the absolute center of the components (text, lines, regions, etc.) that exist in the family. However, View Reference families don’t follow this rule. We've attempted all manner of view reference family tricks but haven't had any real success.

For now, we've had to be sure the tag and it’s gizmo both exist within the limits of the crop (model, annotation) regions so they may stay visible. Primarily, the annotation crop regions dictate the visibility of the tags. The gizmo will then behave a bit better albeit not perfectly.

There is an IdeaStation topic for this very issue. I'd encourage everyone to vote this one up and voice their own concerns as much as possible:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/fix-view-reference-extents/idi-p/6395074

Re: View Reference Annotation Drag mark

MichaelWarwick7522 — Tue, 24 Jan 2017 00:23:21 GMT

This appears to have been fixed in Revit 2017, cross hairs now sit below lowest text or label, aligned to the vertical origin reference plane. Previously it was 1'6" (about 460mm) below the lowest text and centred on all text, reference planes and reference lines were ignored. Unfortunately, the projects I am working on are still in Revit 2016.

Re: View Reference Annotation Drag mark

dusanstevic89 — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 15:29:07 GMT

Unfortunately, I'm still having this problem in Revit 2024.3.

Re: View Reference Annotation Drag mark

MichaelWarwick7522 — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 00:38:59 GMT

Is the family you are having trouble with one that has been upgraded for many years? Have you tried creating a new test family from scratch? I would try with both metric and english templates and then the generic annotation template as Autodesk tend to just upgrade their templates and content each year too and so oddities often remain.