Text Issues with converting templates and families to 2018

[kristian.pal86]

Hi Everyone, 

So I am sure many people have heard about the text issues with the upgrade to 2018, but I was wondering whether anyone had any good solutions to this problem?

At our office we have a large collection of families, templates, details and numerous other Revit files which we had intended to upgrade, but every single one seems to have a humongous issue with the text after upgrading. The text in many cases becomes so jumbled up that the templates are unusable without tedious reworking.  In many instances it would likely be easier to just reproduce them completely in 2018 rather than doctor to match as it did pre-upgrade..but that is many many hours of work at this point.

This has had a very large impact on our content and we are trying to find any find of a solution to resolve this problem efficiently without having to spend countless hours recreating content we have been using for the past few years.  

In the meantime our largest client has dictated the use of 2018 to match with their other consultants and this may become more of a problem for us than we were prepared for.

Any help or suggestions would be most welcome, or even a point in the right direction so we can try to save some of our stuff.

Thanks in advance,

K

[Anonymous]

Hello @kristian.pal86

Don't jump version when upgrading

[ennujozlagam]

@kristian.pal86 hello, try to install latest updates for Revit 2018 (2018.1) service packs/hot fixes and see if helps. thanks

[kristian.pal86]

Sorry, could you elaborate a bit more please? Is there a way to use these Revit files without upgrading them or something?  

I mentioned in my post that we don't really have a choice about using R2018, so I am not sure what you mean by don't jump versions when upgrading.

[kristian.pal86]

Sorry, could you elaborate a bit more please? Is there a way to use these Revit files without upgrading them or something?

I mentioned in my post that we don't really have a choice about using R2018, so I am not sure what you mean by don't jump versions when upgrading.

[kristian.pal86]

I just checked and can confirm that we are running 2018 with the latest service pack installed

[Anonymous]

What version are the files being upgraded from? I think they mean don't upgrade from 2016 to 2018 (jumping versions). If you need to go from 2016 to 2018, first upgrade 2016 to 2017, then 2017 to 2018. 

If I remember, the big text feature upgrade actually happened in the 2017 version. The nice thing is that the text tool became much more robust and useful. The unfortunate thing is that there are some formatting issues converting the text to be compatible with the new tool.

The transition is gentler if you upgrade through every version. This is actually true for all types of elements that have progressive upgrades, but this is especially true when a feature undergoes a major software change like the text tool did in 2017.

[kristian.pal86]

Thank you for your reply. We actually tried that as well and did not find a huge improvement in the quality of the updated files.

[kristian.pal86]

Hi everyone, just to bump this post I am wondering...has anyone found a reliable method for updating details, project files and other larger, text filled files?

Thanks in advance!

[loboarch · Accepted solution]

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@kristian.pal86 wrote:

Hi everyone, just to bump this post I am wondering...has anyone found a reliable method for updating details, project files and other larger, text filled files?

Thanks in advance!

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If you are upgrading the file from 2016, this is the reason your text is not upgrading cleanly.

http://help.autodesk.com/view/RVT/2018/ENU/?guid=GUID-30586D7B-ACF9-4883-A409-A36510697CAC

That being said, there is no magic bullet here to "fix" the issue. Some fonts will be more affected than others, but there is no way to just "fix the problem beyond checking the text and making manual changes as necessary.

[mark.pritchard]

Hi all,
I am also working on a large project and we are currently in Revit 2016.  Our client has instructed us to upgrade to Revit 2018 and to bypass 2017 altogether.  I'm trying to find the best way to avoid as much of this "text issue" as possible.  We have about 50+ models and we are already under staffed and over budget, so rebuilding everything would be completely out of the question. 

Has Autodesk provided any solutions to this?  Or as one person replied, is it better to upgrade everything to 2017 first, and then to 2018?  From my understanding, the text issue starts in 2017, so no matter if I go from 2016 to 2017 to 2018 or 2016 straight to 2018, it will be the same result.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Many thanks all

[Anonymous]

loboarch said it all. 

It's really not a "text issue" that can be "fixed." It's a revamped text tool in 2017 that re-formats all text with different height measurements than previous versions. So some of the text will need to be adjusted after upgrading. Nothing else can be done.

Most of the time it doesn't matter, but occasionally certain family or model corruptions arise if you skip versions. It's always best to upgrade through sequential versions - if possible. Regardless, the text re-formatting situation will be the same whether you go from 2016-2017-2018, or 2016 to 2018 directly. 

My best advice it to audit, compact, and purge to make upgrading as problem free as possible. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Not looking for a "magic bullet" here. Just something that doesn't require manually fixing +15,000 drawings. I would like to think Autodesk put some thought into changing of a fundamental tool. Please tell me you did. please!

[loboarch]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Not looking for a "magic bullet" here. Just something that doesn't require manually fixing +15,000 drawings. I would like to think Autodesk put some thought into changing of a fundamental tool. Please tell me you did. please!

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There is no magic bullet.  I am sorry.  There is no real way to predict which text will be affected and which text will not be affected.  In some cases the exact same text may be ok in one situation while it is not in another situation based on the context.  If you choose to upgrade a project from 2016 to ANY NEWER version you will have to go through and verify text.  In most cases everything will be just fine.