Answer Day: Text in Section Heads

[Anonymous]

In Revit 2016, Text (as opposed to Labels) displays in "Callout Heads" and in "Section Heads." 

In Revit 2017, Text displays in "Callout Heads" but does not display in "Section Heads." 

Is this intended behavior or a mistake?

[Anonymous]

Correction:

It seems to work fine with some files but not others. I am trying to identify what is different.

[Lance.Coffey]

At first, I wasn't seeing a difference in behavior, but I found that while a text note shows up in the section head of a 2017 model when first upgraded, it does not show up when re-opening the model. Re-loading the family causes the text note to display again, until the model is closed and re-opened.

I've created the following article to track the status of this issue:

Revit 2017: Text Notes in Annotation missing on model reload

Note: As this is a new article, it may be a few hours before the link is usable.

Do you have a small sample of a model where it works, and one that doesn't that you could attach to the thread (my first thought to check would be the font used in the text note)?

[Anonymous]

Thanks for confirming.

The font is Arial.

I can reproduce the On-First-Upgrade-OK-But-Reopen-Bad nature of the issue.

I won't be able to send you anything untill tomorrow.

[Anonymous]

On further review, I see that I won't be able to send you a file where it works. I see now that it does not work properly anywhere. I hadn't recognized the reopening aspect of it.

[Lance.Coffey]

That caught me up as well. I had a paragraph written out that I couldn't reproduce what you were seeing, and then looked back at the 2017 model after re-opening and Voila!

[treyk]

Hi Peter--

This is a good catch and is definitely NOT intended behavior.  We've noticed that the same issue occurs when text is placed in the following families (not just section heads):

• Grid Head
• Section Head
• Section Tail
• Spot Elevation Symbol
• Level Head

The text does still exist after save/re-open, but it's missing a kind of regeneration trigger on file-open.  That's why slightly tweeking the family and re-loading it causes the family to regenerate and thus the text re-appears.

The good news is that the problem is not happening in all other annotation families, such as:

• Callout Head
• Door Tag
• Generic Annotation
• Generic Tag
• Elevation Mark
• Multi-Category Tag
• Room Tag
• Window Tag

We're working hard on this one and hope to have it fixed by Service Pack 2. 

Thanks again for your vigilance!

Trey

[treyk]

With regard to this issue, I have good news and bad news and good news.  The first good news is that it is fixed in our development builds (which will eventually be Revit 2018).  The bad news is that in spite of the fact that we worked really hard to get a fix that we can put into R2017 SP2, we discovered that all possible service pack remedies are simply too risky and would likely generate worse problems (e.g. crashes).  

But the second good news is that, for those of you who really need to put text into these annotation symbols in R2017, you can achieve the same results by using a label in a generic annotation.  It's not overly complicated, and it would only need to be done for the five problem annotation families (Section Heads, Section Tails, Grids, Spot Elevations, and Level Heads). 

Here's how you'd do it for, say, Section Head - Filled:

1. In your project's Project Browser find Families > Annotation Symbols > Section Head - Filled. Right-click on it and choose Edit.
2. Open a Generic Annotation template (New > Family > Annotations > Generic Annotation.rft) and open a new generic annotation.
3. In the generic annotation, place a label and edit it.
4. For the label, create and add a new text instance parameter.  Make sure it has the text size that you want (change by selecting the label and clicking Edit Type).
5. Click Load into Project and choose the Section Head - Filled family. Click to place the generic annotation where you want it to be. Click on the "?" of the label and type the text you want the section head to display in the model.
6. Click Load into Project and choose the project. Choose to overwrite parameters and values. OK
7. The label text will now show up just like regular text would have, but the label text will remain visible even after saving, closing, and re-opening the file (unlike regular text in R2017).

We apologize for not being able to fix this in a safe way in R2017, and we hope that this workaround will help out those who still need to have non-disappearing text in these annotations.

Thanks,
Trey

[scott]

Trey,

Thank you. This work around seems to work for me.

I, like many others, have been using text (underscores) as a line that will remain horizontal and in front of a masking region. This is a work around that wouldn't be necessary if we could control draw order and select objects to remain fixed versus rotate with the object... any chance this will be addressed in the next build (2018)?

[Darin_HDR]

The work around works as long as you wish for your text to rotate with the section head. If you want your text to remain horizontal (like in my case) inserting a generic annotation does not work.

Background, I use text to create a division line between sheet and drawing number. The reason for this is I have added a masking region to the head. Unfortunately the masking region covers up the in place division line (and hence the need to add this with text like so _____ . 

Maybe for 2018, you could look at a way to add a masking region without covering up in place lines or a way to designate which items rotate with the section line or set drawing order of elements in the family like you can in a project.

Thanks for the legwork though put into identifying this problem and working up a work around (that I am sure works for most).

[Anonymous]

emailfordarin describes exactly the issue I am having.

If the Line element would stay above the Masking Region then I would not have a problem.

Alternatively, if I could create two semi-circle masking regions that did not rotate with the component, then I would not have a problem.

Please give us control over these elements. This is such a major issue and affects so many sheets.

Thanking you in advance.

Anthony.

[ToanDN]

@Anonymous 

You know about the workaround using text in lieu of a line, right?

[Anonymous]

Hi Toan,

If you are referring to the procedure using text Underscore characters, then yes. That worked fine when we were on v2015 but now we have moved to v2017 it does not work anymore. The circular mask obscures the text underscores (and any linework there).

Anthony.

[ToanDN]

Try this.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Toan.

My testing shows that does work. Excellent.

I see you did use the nested generic annotation method described by treyk. I had not tested that as emailfordarin suggested it did not work. I hope he/she downloads your tag and tests it.

Thank you very much for posting your family. Very kind. Look me up of you come to Sydney and I'll buy you a drink. I am going to post this to RevitForum too.

Regards,

Anthony.

[Darin_HDR]

At this point I don't recall exactly what my process was for not getting the inserted generic annotation to work for me. 

The section head Toan posted did work and is greatly appreciated.

On a side note, we could still use greater control over elements that are fixed or rotate within section heads. Not sure why this isn't a controllable option for any element in this family (line, masking region, text or otherwise).

Thanks again Toan for the help!!!

[Lance.Coffey]

Hello Anthony,

I found the following Idea posted to our Revit Ideas page (regarding having the ability to have the text rotate with the section head::
Rotatable Section Heads

However, as this isn’t quite what you are looking for. I would suggest reviewing the ideas already posted, and if none contain what you are looking for, post your ideas there so that others can review, comment, and vote them up. (If you are wondering why you should post them there again, the Ideas page and the votes are being monitored by our developers to find the greatest areas of user interest.)

[Anonymous]

Hello all. My firm utilizes section heads with "drawn on" and "referenced from" labels. Thanks to Toan I chose to load generic annotations with labels into our masked section head for both the horizontal line through the section head which is represented by "_______" and the vertical line through the bottom half of the section head which is represented by "|".

I felt as silly as all hell doing this and can't wait for it to no longer be a thing 🙂

[arch_tsetenVYP6J]

Was this issue ever fixed or we are still doing the same thing? This work-around solution doesn't really flex and stay true for all scales if you use text to create edge lines. Any progress here or we just manually create filled regions? 

[Lance.Coffey]

@arch_tsetenVYP6J I'm seeing the original issue was resolved in the Revit 2018 release.

On the improvement idea of Rotatable Section Heads, I'm seeing this has been implemented (looks like in 2021 release).

Could you provide more details on the workflow/workaround you are referring to and your product version?