So I'm working on a new Presentation and Construction Document Title Block for myself, and I'm a bit confused by this family for a couple reason. I'm hoping by posting here that I can get some clarification that will set me straight. So to be clear I have no problem with starting with a base template, and just building within the lines. I don't need any assistance understanding parameters, labels, or frankly many of the graphical tools within this family. My issues are a little more fundamental.
ISSUE NUMBER ONE - Where is the Origin point? Every other family I've made has reference planes (including room tags), and you can use these to define an origin. But not this one. Similarly, without a locked down origin, it seemingly grows randomly when I try to us dimensioned parameters to lock components down or try to build in some very simple parameters that make sense to me, but without a locked origin are all but useless.
ISSUE NUMBER TWO - What actually defines the paper size? I mean as far as I can tell it is nothing more than the outermost model lines. Which seems odd to me.
ISSUE NUMBER THREE - When bringing this family into my project and placing it on a sheet, it seems obvious to me that in many ways the Title Block is a giant Tag that is being placed on the Sheet Element, and thus it pulls it's information from the Sheet or the Project and populated up the Label Information. But it doesn't just snap anyone on the Sheet. Once again where is the origin? How do I define the Printable area? I'm used to working in AutoCAD where I place things on the origin point and then use the view command and tell the printer exactly where to look.
ISSUE NUMBER FOUR - My plotter is very finicky. When working in AutoCAD, we had to define the printable area to be within the margins of the page, or the plotter would not print the page. So if you have a ANSI D paper (34"x22") we had to subtract 0.2" from the interior perimeter in AutoCAD to get it to actually print. While we'd select the ANSI D paper size in the printer setup, the actual printable area was 33.6"x21.6" to make sure there was nothing printing in the margins otherwise the machine would say that it needs a larger paper size. But once again I can't find any good information on setting the size of the paper in the family, setting it correctly in the sheet, defining the printable area, etc.
What is more frustrating to me about this, is that it seems so basic, and while I get the more complex aspects of setting up this family, no one seems to address these seemingly basic questions correctly. Everyone dances around the issue and say: "Just start with one of the pre-defined titleblock sizes!" I don't know what if I'm setting up a billboard for a jobsite, and the page I'm producing is 20 feet long and 6 feet high. I want to understand these elements intrinsically not just cut and paste and do what novices do, and lean on them as a crutch.
I've spent a lot of time on the forums and google looking for these issues, but honestly everyone either dances around it, or never really answers the question directly. Any help is greatly appreciated, thank you.
Solved! Go to Solution.
