STOP renaming family Family and Type when copy-paste

[mpukas]

STOP!!! renaming elements in the Project Browser when copy-paste an element from one project file to another. It makes a mess in the project browser and leads to a lot of unnecessary work to find and replace elements in families and clean up the duplicates. Rivet's built-in instructions of using select-all-in-project and then replacing with a different element does not work. That is a separate issue that I've posted about that needs to be fixed. Furthermore, sometimes the Family Name will be renamed, but not the Family Type. So, when you go into the family, such as railing, where the element is used, you cannot tell which Family the Type is being used. SOOOOO INFURIATING!!! Instead of renaming the element, give options to use existing, use new, or rename new. This is just more archaic Revit behavior that causes much unnecessary frustration. 

[coreyb]

I recently started a new project and copied new unit types (each unit type is a group) from a previous project. I now have duplicate families of all the preloaded families that are in our project template. (ie Base Cabinet w/ 1 Drawer Base Cabinet w/ Drawer1) I have different family types that are the same family. I would like to be able to drag and drop the family types from one family to the same family and get rid of the duplicate families. This would save time in recreating family types.

[msarqui]

Just stop duplicating things.

Or, Revit should ask if we want that. It should be the same as AutoCad blocks. If you import something, it will ask to replace for the new version or not. If you copy and paste, it will assume that the existing block will be used.

[Anonymous]

It would be AMAZING if Revit could see the similarities in an Annotation Symbol family or Detail Item family that is in a model already to what is being brought in by transfer project standards, or import views/2D elements, or even copy and paste from another model. My office keynotes details because we link it to E-Specs and I am so tired of needing to clean out 5 versions of the same Keynote family because Revit doesn't see the similarities in them so it creates a 'Keynote Tag1', 'Keynote Tag2', and so on families because we brought in 2 details from another model that had keynotes in them and we already had a keynote family in the model. This even goes for Callout Heads, Section Heads, or Gypsum Detail Items. We always end up with so many Gypsum Detail Items in a project and just telling a project team to be more mindful of this is not the best workaround sometimes.

[Anonymous]

Agreed!  A Keynote family duplication purge option should exist!

[ViviNyehuusAndersen]

This is a bug, and Revit should not do this.

Please sent this to there support team. I talked to one of them at the AU, and they are looking into this, but hearing from other users would help speeding up the proces.

[Anonymous]

@ViviNyehuusAndersen thanks for the comment! I contacted Autodesk and hopefully will get a response back from them soon. This is probably one of the most frustrating things I see as I go through models. It makes it nearly impossible to have a model entirely clean of unnecessary things.

[ViviNyehuusAndersen]

Yes I know what you mean.

I’ve refereed to your post here in my case, so hopefully it’s getting attention.

Wich add-ins / tool programs do you have installed on top of Revit?

[Anonymous]

@ViviNyehuusAndersen awesome! I hope this gets resolved since I feel like it's been an issue forever. A coworker of mine also just got it to happen with copying in a door family. Same naming and everything, but it duplicated it.

My office uses Guardian to do an immense amount of office standardization. It's been super helpful with these sort of things. We also use Unifi Project Analytics to keep track of things and pyRevit. O! We also use some tools from DiRoots and IMAGINiT. I think that's all of them haha.

[ainQX6BX]

 When importing the details from company standards or projects done within the company, Revit will automatically carry detail components and annotative symbols over with duplicated family name & type following the same name with a 1, 2, 3....100, etc.

The name and settings are of those particular family are the same.  Why does Revit do that?  It is very annoying to clean up 100 of the same detail component to use the original one.

Can this be fix somehow?

[stanford_ri]

At least give us the option to duplicate or merge families.

[priscillia_champagne]

Just reposting an associated post.. that hasn't been solved since 2010. 

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-architecture-forum/duplication-of-detail-families-when-insertin...

When I load 2d details by "inserting a view from a file" from my detail library, it gives new names to my standard detail components.  I get a warning message such as “Family "CMU Standard" has been renamed to "CMU Standard1" to avoid conflicts with the existing Element.”.  THERE IS NO CONFLICT BECASUE THESE FAMILIES ARE EXACTLY THE SAME.  

It is hard enough finding the correct detail component with a list over 100 long without unnecessary duplication.  Is there any way to prevent this duplication? 

[lionel.kai]

Unfortunately, the only way to prevent it is to make sure that the same version of each family is loaded into both files before inserting the view. This can occur when the family is modified (to improve/fix something), but most often occurs (for us) when inserting from a different version. For example, we keep separate family library folders for each version of Revit. Those same files are loaded into our project template, but if you insert views from a project (or typical library) that's in an earlier version, Revit detects those families as being "different" - Revit's not smart enough to compare the contents of the families, I believe it just uses the file paths and timestamps. The solution is to reload the affected families into the SOURCE project to match the TARGET project. That's not always convenient, so it's usually easier to use something like pyRevit to manually fix the duplicates afterward (if it's a small number of families/types).

BTW, @kimberly_fuhrman-jones this duplicates the following ideas:

• https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/duplicate-family-types/idi-p/8085338
• https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/get-rid-of-detail-component-annotative-symbol-family-auto...

[ViviNyehuusAndersen]

@AnnaOscarson Problem is not solved yet ;( 

See this post 

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/stop-annotation-symbol-and-detail-item-duplication/idi-p/...

Could be solved easily with a warning

[Mike.FORM]

The issue is that a families name has nothing to do with what the family contains. The modeled elements within a family could be completely different than what you are overwriting in the project.

Copy pasting is not how you should be loading families. You should be selecting the family in the project and doing a reload to bring in the most current version.

[ViviNyehuusAndersen]

@Mike.FORMI have a video of Revit creating a "1" after reloading a family as well ;( Revit tells nothing about creating this..

And eg. 

If you have a PI drawing inside a content template, you don’t need to start from scratch for each project. Instead, it’s best to have the option to override these families. 

[Mike.FORM]

If the family in your Content Drawing is the same as the family that is preloaded in your project template it will not create the (1). This happens specifically when there is a difference in the family file information (save date, file location, file name, etc.)

[ViviNyehuusAndersen]

@Mike.FORM I know, but what if I want an overwrite?
99% of these cases I do not want to manually select all and chence them, I wan´t an overwrite. 

Autodesk should support that. 

[Mike.FORM]

I agree it should be possible but they need to add a lot more information other than just a check back saying are you sure.

They should show the thumbnail image and possible file location and save date at the minimum.

It basically needs to be fool proof so that someone doesn't overwrite a family with a new one just because the name is the same and they think its the same family.

[ViviNyehuusAndersen]

Yes i totally agree👍🏼

[mpukas]

There are numerous problems with this issue. Some elements cannot be loaded into a project, they have to be copy-pasted from another project, such a Detail Group consisting of Detail Lines. 

When I copy-paste a Detail Group, this happens: 

Revit will over-write some project elements, even though they not related to anything in the Detail Group being pasted: 

 

Yet Revit will dupe Families that, again, have nothing to do with the Detail Group being pasted: 

Railings is another element that causes me problems dupes, as railings are made up of multiple components, and Revit make dupes of these components. 

The frustrations are further compounded when the dupes are attempted to be deleted. Revit will throw up warnings that the families are used in other types. It instructs to select all in project, and then select a replacement. THIS DOES NOT WORK!!! I've made separate post about it. Furthermore, when investigating the railing types to find the offending dupe families, those dupe families are not even in the railing type!!! 

This issue is such a vicious circle of incoherence. This type of nonsensical behavior should be intolerable!