1. Set up Structural Member Styles for all of the steel members you expect to use. (You can always add more, later.)
2. In the Style Manager, under your current Drawing, expand the Documentation Objects and the Property Set Definitions nodes.
3. Right click the Property Set Definitions node and choose New in the context menu.
4. Give the new Property Set Definition a name of your choosing. If you think you may ever want to reference a property in this Property Set in a Schedule Tag, do not include any spaces in the Definition name.
5. Left click the new style.
6. In the right pane, on the General tab, add a Description if you like.
7. On the Applies To tab, choose the Styles and Definitions radio button at the top, and then check Structural Member Style.
8. On the Definition tab, left click the Add Manual Property Definition button (top one at the far right column of buttons).
9. Provide a name for the property; as with the Property Set Definition name, do not include any spaces in the property name if you want to be able to reference it in a Schedule Tag.
10. Assign appropriate attributes to the property. For a property holding the height (depth) of a structural member, setting the type to Real would be the appropriate choice. Set a default value if you like, but you may be better off leaving this set to 0, as a warning that you have not entered the appropriate value for a given style. Standard may work as the Property Data Format; if not, you can use another or create a custom format. If you want to see the property on the Extended Data tab of the Properties palette, leave the Visible toggle checked. If you have multiple properties, you can deterimine the order is which the properties appear in the Properties palette by entering integer values in the Order column.
11. Repeat steps 8 - 10 for each additional manual property you want to add (if any).
12. Click Apply to register your edits to this point in the Drawing. If you added a number of properties, or just want to be safe, you can click OK to dismiss the Style Manager and then save the Drawing.
13. Reopen or continue in the Style Manager. Expand the Architectural Objects and Structural Member Styles node.
14. Select the first Structural Member Style, and, on the General tab in the right pane, click on the Property Sets... button.
15. In the Edit Property Set Data dialog, click on the Add Property Sets button near the lower left corner.
16. Make certain the Property Set Definition you created is checked (you can choose to add or not add any other Property Set Definitions that apply to Structural Member Styles, if any) and click OK.
17. Your new Property Set will appear in the Edit Property Set Data dialog. You may need to scroll to find it,. Enter the data specific to this style for each of your manual properties.
18. Click OK.
19. Repeat steps 14 - 18 for each of the remaining Structural Member Styles.
20. Click OK to close the Style Manager. Save your Drawing file.
You wiill likely want to set up a style source file in which you keep Structural Member Styles to which you have added your custom data and from which you copy the styles for use in future Drawings, to avoid having to manually add the data over and over. Because the data is attached to a style-based Property Set Definition, the data will travel with the Style when copied into a new file. (Unless you already have a Property Set Definition of the same name, but with different properties, in the target file.)
David Koch
AutoCAD Architecture and Revit User
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