Revit thinnest line possible

[Anonymous]

Hi! 

I`ve just started working for a new company that has been working in AutoCAD. When we make pdf:s and prints we have four different thickness on lines 0,05mm, 0,09mm, 0,15mm and 0,25mm. Now since I started we are going to switch to Revit (I have been working with Revit for seven years) and we want the same line thickness. I know how to change the line thickness in Revit and it looks nice on the screen, but when I print it the 0,05 mm line and the 0,09 mm line looks the same.

Is there a way to make thinner lines than 0,085mm that I’ve read on different forums is the thinnest line to plot from Revit? Or some plugin that will help me get lines thinner then 0,085? 

Thanks for the help!

/William

[Viveka_CD · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous

I see that you are a new visitor. Thanks for posting and welcome to the Autodesk community!

In Revit, The line weight dialog allows the line width to be set as thin as 0.001", but this is limited by two values:

1) The resolution of the printer and

2) The lower limit for Revit has always been 0.083 mm (0.0033”). 

As a result, the thinnest printed line is about three times as thick as the smallest allowed user-specified setting and about two times as thick as the thinnest printable line at 600 dpi. With larger dpi, the limit becomes more and more apparent, since the physical size of the "dot" decreases, while Revit's limit stays the same. Extra resolution should be gained by increasing the dpi setting of the printer.

We are not sure of any plugin for this one.

Please support a similar idea in Revit ideas - Improve Line Weights for small-scale drawings - Remove .003" limit and feel free to add comments and please vote for this idea.

Line weights problem - printing to PDF (similar thread)

Additional information:

• Use the Line Weights dialog to define the width of the pen used to draw lines in views.
• To see Thin Lines type TL 
• Use the Quick Access Toolbar (see below) click on the Thin Lines icon, see status bar display in the graphic.

Thin Lines TL

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question. Kudos welcome!

Regards,

[Anonymous]

Hi!

Thanks for the information, it was as I suspected then that there is a limit and it’s too thick comparing to what we are used to do in AutoCAD. 

We’ll have to make Autodesk change this so that the lines can be printed as thin and nice as in AutoCAD because we want to be able to do beautiful 2D drawings in Revit as well!

Regards 

William

[Viveka_CD]

Hi @Anonymous

Thanks for following up on the ideas page.

Regards,

[akord2015]

The bug is still present in Revit 2024

[ToanDN]

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@akord2015 wrote:

The bug is still present in Revit 2024

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0.003" limit is a designed limitation (undesired by some), but not a bug.

[F_Giorlando]

I wanted to point out (for those who are desperate) that if you do the very "un-Revite like" thing and link in a DWG most printers will print the thinner lines of the DWG - even those below this .0033 limit!  I have not done a study recently to see if there is an exact match between the straight from CAD approach vs the CAD through Revit approach, but it is definitely thinner.  The printer and its driver might have an impact on this.  I mention this purely to help those who cannot get their detail quite to the level they want, and to point out that this is an entirely self-imposed Revit limitation.  This might have made sense in 2005 but not in 2025.  Someone, somewhere, obviously has a very fixed and narrow opinion about minimal lineweights 

[RSomppi]

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@F_Giorlando wrote:

to point out that this is an entirely self-imposed Revit limitation.  

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Care to cite your source? 

[Mike.FORM]

It likely has something to do with performance since at a 0.0033" lineweight that would mean that 10,909.09 lines could be placed side by side on a 3'-0" wide sheet.

If we went down to the 0.001" limit then you could get 36,000 lines side by side.

I could see them possibly adding the ability to change this minimum similar to how they just dealt with the toposolid point limit, but I think 0.0033" is a pretty reasonable default value to minimize performance issues.

Again not sure the exact reasoning but one could draw parallels to the point limit for toposolids.

It may be self-imposed but it is probably for good reason.