By Carl Storms, IMAGINiT Building Solutions
Revit 2016 is now out in the world and has been for a few weeks. I have come to learn about 2 little hidden gems of “New” features in Revit 2016. For whatever reason these hidden gems have been left off the official Autodesk information for what is new with the 2016 release. In this post I’m going to talk about second of the two hidden gems – Multiline Text Type Parameter.
The Multiline Text Type Parameter is just that, a parameter you can add to your project. What this parameter allows you to do is have more than one line of text at a time for a single parameter (I guess that’s why its call Multiline Text).
This new parameter type can be accessed anywhere you would access any of the other parameters in Revit.
The way this parameter works once in your project is a lot like the way the Model Text feature works. Information can’t be added directly into the properties box where you see text.
What you need to do is select the 3 dots … icon within the properties box area and it will open up a text window like you would see if creating Model Text. You will also notice as you hover over the text, you will see a tool tip that will show you the full multiline text display.
If you use this parameter as shared parameter you can also tag and schedule the results. When you tag something with this parameter there is a limitation; you can’t simply double click on the tag and edit it. All editing must be done via the edit text dialog box.
Schedules work and look similar to what you see in the properties pallet. In the schedule view you will only see the first line of the multiline text that is contained in your parameter.
However, once you place the schedule on a sheet you are now able to see all of the lines that are within the Multiline Text parameter.
One key thing that has been discovered with this parameter is that it only works in 2016. So if you are using a shared parameter file (.txt) for multiple versions of Revit you will need to create a new one. Once you have the multiline text parameter within the shared parameter file it will no longer work with older versions of Revit as it did in the past.
You can learn more about this new parameter (as I did) from Steve Stafford’s posts at Revit OpEd here, here, and here.
You can also learn more about the new multiline text parameter as well as other new 2016 features over at the IMAGINiT YouTube Channel in the video: Autodesk Revit 2016: Favorite New Features – Part 2
If you are still looking for more new features for Revit 2016 check out these videos too:
Autodesk Revit 2016: Favorite New Features
Autodesk Revit 2016: Favorite New Features – Part 3
Link to Part 1 of the Revit 2016 Gems.
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