Allow schedules to display multi-line input properly

[Kevin.Bell]

When inputting information into a Revit schedule, if you want to input multiple lines (not wrapped text) into the cell you can press Shift - Return.

When the schedule is placed on a sheet, its displayed correctly and multiple lines can be seen.

But when editting the schedule in a schedule view Revit will only display the first line, there is no ability to expand the row.

This makes it difficult and confusing to work with the informaiton - its easy to miss and delete.

The schedule view should be able to cater for multi-line input just like it does when placed on a sheet.

[jberry9FDWR]

How do I get this feature to work with vertical text? My text will wrap when oriented horizontally, but when vertical the cell just stretches to accommodate everything on one line.

[DanChristian]

This has been an issue for over 20 years.  Please fix this!!!!

[jonathan_larson]

@jberry9FDWR that sounds like a different issue than the one being addressed in this thread. I'd suggest adding your voice to this idea from 5 years ago.

[sbTFA]

How are we still waiting for this?

It is so frustrating and leads to errors.

Also the graphic display of text in schedules on sheets is abysmal. They print fine, but text on sheet is readable, but not in a schedule unless you zoom right in.  Revit just doesn't seem to be able to do schedules right.

[crapai]

We are still waiting on this because we are not the customers. Shareholders are the customers. There is no reason why Autodesk needs to add this, so they will not.

[vanessaBWH88]

AMEN! I makes it very difficult to edit the text when it wraps several lines on the sheet but, in the editor, you can't see most of it and navigating to a specific portion to edit it is also a real bear. Oh, and the insertion I-beam doesn't show when you click somewhere in the schedule text to edit it, so you're not sure you clicked in the right place until you start typing. They really should fix the schedule editing interface or allow us to edit on the sheet please.

[GallowayUS_com_RonAllen1]

@crapai  - I Wonder if each of us bought a share of Autodesk... hmmm...

[rbaillet]

The really disheartening thing is that, when you look at screenshots from Revit 1.0, released back in 1999, the text in schedules looks exactly the same as it does now. Not 99% the same, 100.00% the same.

The whole program is like this. The core code is decades old at this point, written by two amateur programmers. Autodesk bought it, slapped their logo on it and has made only surface improvements ever since. It's possible that the devs don't even know how it works, because they didn't create it. They just know that it DOES work and they're afraid to touch it, so instead they keep rolling it forward every year.

A true Revit 2.0 needs to be made, but there's no reason for them do that. They have a monopoly and we're all paying $x,xxx per seat for the privilege to rent this clunky, outdated software from them.  There needs to be competition from outside of Autodesk, but that will never happen unless their monopoly is broken up in the way that Bell Telephone was broken up back in the 1980s.

[cspencerR99QG]

The wonderful power of BIM, linked to schedules straight out the 1990s!! Crazy how Autodesk has never updated this and resulted in dozens of work-arounds: plugins, excel hacks, and text-and-line schedules still commonplace. Hmm, that isn't so building INFORMATION modeling, is it??

Beyond word-wrap, schedules need more, very simple improvements. Seriously, please take the $15k my company gives you EVERY YEAR and hire some programmers to spend 12 hours to fix this....

• How about select, copy, and paste multiple cells (in and out of other software, like Excel)? This single thing, if done simply and cleanly, would wipe DiRoots and RfTools off the map. Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V ... make changes ... Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V ... paste results. So easy I'd forget entirely about addons.
• How about ability to edit combined parameter fields within the schedule? Why do I need to unhide columns? You already have this dialog box for editing combined parameters with tags...could you please add this to schedules? Ridiculous.
• How about allow editing schedules in sheet views (for quick edits of single cell)?
• Don't get me started on the 90s keynoting, no formulas for text (like contains(), concat(), etc)...

[stevenmathias1]

I've been working on custom Revit add-ins for the company I work for, and no joke, we literally have buttons just to let us edit some parameters in a window where you can see the full text at once. For all of the amazing things Revit can do, text is not one of them. If I designed a UI where you couldn't read what you're writing like Revit does I wouldn't consider it usable. The fact that this issue was raised eight years ago and hasn't been fixed should be embarrassing for Autodesk. You can't call for a single source of truth mentality and then not do basic text handling. Please fix this so we can use Revit schedules. 

[ggetts5RNN9]

As the head of our company BIM committee I tried to get people to use Revit schedules for years, and there are many that won't because of how terrible it is to edit the schedules in Revit. The current BIM committe chair tries to as well, but many still won't. They stick with editing not-smart Excel schedules by hand and importing them into Revit with 3rd party apps.

[cspencerR99QG]

Revit 2026 just got released! Guess what...still has schedule graphics from the 1990s. Sorry, no word-wrap folks. While easy data manipulation is FUNDAMENTAL to the idea of BIM, it's clearly NOT a priority for Autodesk.

• Word wrap! Word wrap! Need we say it again?
• Can't see the CURSOR sometimes! Cursor magically goes to start. This has been going on for DECADES!
• Select, copy, and paste MULTIPLE cells. Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V. Don't complain about cells being locked if the values are the SAME, this dialog is pointless and interrupts workflow.
• Edit combined parameter fields within the schedule? You ALREADY have the dialog box when editing tags. Why lock the cell?

[mgabrielaAUFSM]

8 years later and this is still an issue?! We desperatley need this to be solved. And I would go futher and say this is only a part of one big problem that is the customization of schedules. I want to be able to adjust the height of rows (multiline-text or not), to change the boders, the colors, add miniatures of the element....... the conditional format could be so usefull if it only worked beyond the background color and just one single condition in one single parameter. I could go on, but won't. 

TL;DR: That we can have multi-line text and are not able to see it in the one place where we can edit it, feels too old to be true, but here we are.... 

At this point I feel like this is kind of toxic behaviour from Revit.

[rbaillet]

Autodesk has a complete monopoly on this market. None of us have any alternative and they know it.

Until that changes, until they start actually *losing customers* to a competitor, none of these substantive changes we've been pleading for will ever be made.

They have no obligation to us, the users. Their only obligation is to their shareholders, who demand that "line go up" year over year. From that perspective, forcing all of us to use a clunky, 26 year old program that never sees updates while paying through the nose for it is good business.