Delete Text Style

[asommer]

Over the years of modifying Revit to suit our company, we had created and changed our text styles many times. Utilizing a "Template" file, we have a set of text styles we use on a typical basis. However, there are many other styles that no longer suit us, and I would like to delete them. I cannot seem to find a way to delete a text style. Any suggestions?

[CoreyDaun · Accepted solution]

Under "Purge Unused" (on the Manage tab), you can click "Check None" and then scroll down to the bottom of the dialog to the "Text" header, and specify the unused Text Styles you wish to delete.

[asommer]

For some reason, that doesn't show all the text styles...

[CoreyDaun · Accepted solution]

That would indicate that the Text Style is in use *somewhere* in the Project.

Check your Plan Views - this can be done globally by creating a Text Element in any Plan View of the unwanted Text Style, right-clicking on it, selecting "Select All Instances" ► "In Entire Project", and then checking the number in the selection filter in the bottom right corner. If that count reads more than 1, then instances of that Text Style still exist in some Plan View. In lieu of hunting for it, you could just change the Text Style (using the Type Selector) while they are all selected.

Check your Legend Views - The above method does not cover these. As a method of determining if a Legend View is harboring the unwanted Text Style, simple select and delete all Legend Views and then check the "Purge Unused" dialog to see if that Text Style can now be purged. Undo the deleting of the Legend Views and if the rogue Text Style does exist within them, you will have to manually search through them for it.

Check your Schedule Views - If the unwanted Text Style is in use under a Schedules "Appearance" tab, then it cannot be purged. You can use the above method (temporarily delete all Schedules) to determine if the unwanted Text Style is being held in use by one or more Schedule Views. If so, you will have to manually search through them to find it.

Check your View Templates - specifically, the Schedule View Templates. Since once can create View Templates for Schedules, it is possible that one of them (even one that is not being used) is holding the unwanted Text Style hostage. You will have to search through the "Appearance" tab.

[jkarben]

To help find the unwanted text types change them to a large 2” size and an odd color like magenta.

[ebarchitects]

I run into the same problem once and after going crazy deleting all schedules, legends, views, etc i still could not purge one of ten text styles. I noticed that when recreating a schedule revit used the exact text style that i wanted to purge even though i used a schedule template with different text styles.

The conclusion is that Revit keeps a text style hard coded to use when creating new schedules and cannot purge it. The answer was to delete another text style and rename the hard coded non purged one like the deleted one.

Cheers 

[s.borello]

It will only show the text styles that are NOT in use in the project.  

[Anonymous]

THANKS A LOT! it works for me.

[levberez]

That doesn't work all that well.  I copied a bunch of unwanted texts so that I can "select all in project", then deleted all the texts, and they still don't show up on the Purge Unused list. So what's the point?

Revit needs to have the text styles available like any other Family item so you can scroll down to see what's what and delete what you don't need.

What's the point of having 20 styles that you don't use and making the list of available texts unnecessarily long???

[RobDraw]

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@levberez wrote:

What's the point of having 20 styles that you don't use and making the list of available texts unnecessarily long???

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Those styles had to be created somehow. They don't just magically appear.

What's the point of creating them in the first place if they are unnecessary?

[levberez]

Maybe because we're not a one person office???

Anyway, thank you for the very informative reply.

Have a good one.

[RobDraw]

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@levberez wrote:

Maybe because we're not a one person office???

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Multiple people doing their own thing is not a Revit problem.

A custom template and good standards usually helps alleviate cowboy CAD.

[SteveKStafford]

As written earlier, one text style can't be deleted...which one that is might not be obvious because it has been renamed. Ultimately if you identify that one text style you can't delete, that's the original text style...a system style so to speak. You can rename it however, so make that one your primary text style and build new ones from there.

The right-click option > Select All Instances does not detect elements in Legend views or schedules. That means it is possible to have text styles in use that you can't select that way. You'll need to review your schedules (and view templates) and legend views too.

[Anonymous]

@RobDraw I believe the OP message has stated the problem (not being a Cowboy CAD issue at all). Some offices go through evolving templates and older standards that still remain are needing cleanup. Managing templates and maintenance can be a time-consuming experience, especially in a busy office, and easier working solutions are desired.

The problem that the OP posits is that they are going through the process of cleaning up their project, and one could assume that the cleaned up items will be the standard going forward (not the actual issue in question). While cleaning, they found the problem that Text Types are not easily removed, such as Pipe or System Types and is lamenting that this could be a feature of Revit.

Text, unfortunately, is an annotative object that is not treated as an element. Where-as other annotative objects ARE elements and modifiable in the normal way. I also think this needs to be fixed in future versions. This would also solve problems with not being able to dimension text boxes in Annotative Tagging.

Also, your post wasn't very informative or helpful. Just chastising someone else for their frustrations. Saying that your standards and templates should just always be perfect is not an acceptable solution when the OP is clearly trying to head in that direction.

I'm in this posting because we used to use 2mm RomanS text as our standard in CAD. RomanS is not very good in Revit, so we switched to Calibri and increased it to 2.5mm for visibility. In one of the later version updates to Revit, the 2.5mm text suddenly appeared a bit larger when compared to our CAD standard again. So we are switching back to 2mm for the new versions of Revit and are removing the 2.5mm size from the template. Unfortunately, after reading the solutions, I know I now need to go through all of my tags and annotation families and remove any embedded 2.5mm sizes in order to remove the sizes from the template.

Part of me is just thinking of bugging our Python/Dynamo guy in the office to write a script for it XD.

[RobDraw]

Maybe you didn't notice that I was not responding to the OP?

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply Rob and yes I did notice. I posted because yours was dismissive to someone's valid input, and treated your post as one that missed the point.

To summarize for your information:

Levberez's post had relevant points and I think you misinterpreted their final outcry. They are saying they have 20 text types due to the inability to remove them easily, and as result the text list is unmanageable. So what is the point of having a system where this can happen? And it will happen to many people in many different companies because of the way it currently works.

They weren't berating the OP or anyone else for having added 20 text types, because it happens to everyone in some margin. And, they weren't wondering where the 20 types came from either.

This is constructive criticism. Please provide useful information for the OP question or simply don't respond. 

[RobDraw]

You're entitled to your opinion b

I stand by my comments. Prevention is the cure. Controlling content and proper training are essential for anyone who wants their models free from unnecessary styles.

[Anonymous]

Ok, I won't tell you. 

My comments offer an explanation to the misunderstandings you had. So I have provided information that is helpful.

Prevention is certainly the best solution and does not help this situation. The question in the post says that the tools for prevention are imperfect and was looking for a better solution with the trouble they are in.

[RobDraw]

You are assuming that I misunderstood. Do you know what happens when you assume? 

[Anonymous]

Ok, thanks for the input. I'm backing out before the Mods get involved.

Cheers,