by Dennis Collin
No matter how long you have used software there is always a feature that can be missed, not known, or just simply forgotten. Here is a list of some of the more common items.
1. Making use of the Family lists within the project browser to place elements. Locate the family that you wish to place and choose ‘create instance’ from a right-click menu.
2. Revit’s Nudge function. A selected element can be ‘nudged’ by pressing the arrow or cursor keys. Zooming in on the screen reduces the nudge distance increment. Using the Shift+Arrow keys moves selected elements 10 times further.
3. Quick Delete. Hold the Delete key down for quicker delete operations. By holding the Delete key down, you can delete items one-by-one by clicking on them. Beware although it may be faster there is a chance of deleting an element by mistake!
4. Revit’s Window Selection Function. When using a selection window on screen, dragging bottom-left to top-right on your screen only those elements entirely within the rectangle, but if you drag bottom-right to top-left on screen it selects elements that cross the rectangle instead.
Fig. Crossing and Inside selection modes
5. Revit’s ‘Magic Tab Key’. Using the Tab key cycles through selection candidates. Tab while within a command cycles through potential snaps. This can be used to disable snapping in a particular case. Using Shift+Tab reverses the cycling options. The Tab key can also be used for selecting a chain of lines or walls when none of them are already selected. To select only part of a chain, select a line in the chain, then mouse over another line in the chain, Tab, pick, selects the part of the chain connecting those two lines.
Fig. Selecting a chain of walls.
6. Revit’s Create Similar function (CS). When an element is selected, using this command invokes the appropriate tool to create an element identical to the original.
7. Keyboard Shortcut Editor (KS) Customise the Revit Interface and access commonly used commands like Section, Visibility Graphics Overrides and View Range with easy to remember and to access shortcuts.
Fig. Revit’s Keyboard Shortcut Editor
8. Disable Revit Snaps temporarily. Use the keyboard shortcut ‘SO’ to disable all object snaps for the next pick. Look in the snaps dialog box, within the Manage tab for other snap control keyboard tricks.
Fig. Revit’s snap control dialogue
9. Revit’s Cancel or panic button! The Esc key generally gets you out of the current command and back to the Modify tool (sometimes you need to press Escapes several times to exit certain commands).
10. Revit’s Dynamic Input. Typing a number while sketching a line finishes creating a line in the direction you were going with the specified length. There is a similar behaviour for other commands like Move, the value typed goes into the "listening" temporary dimension (which is the one that is bold). Also, if you are entering a number (such as in a temporary dimension) you can enter an equal sign and then type an expression. For example, to sketch a golden rectangle with one side 1000, set the other side to =1000*(sqrt(5)-1)/2. Revit will calculate the expression and use that value.
11. Sketching Tips. If you are sketching many arcs or circles with the same radius, pick the Radius check box in the option bar and type the radius before sketching. This also works with the straight-line tool for creating a rounded ‘polyline’ like object.
12. Dimension Tips. Drag the witness line control on a temporary dimension to a different reference point . The overridden reference will be remembered for each dimension. If one or more elements are selected and temporary dimensions are not apparent, press Activate Dimensions from the Options bar. When using permanent dimensions and nonparallel or perpendicular features are referenced use Revit’s Magic Tab key to choose alternate references like line vertices.