2020 | 009 – Notes, Legends & Specifications

Hey, welcome everyone to the ARCHICAD Best Practices 2020 course.  Today is Wednesday, February 6^th, 2019, and we are up to, I guess, number 8 [actually 9] in our training series, and today, we’ll be focusing on notes, legends, and specifications.  Very few notes here on my list, but I will be adding more to it when it goes onto the page for the training.  [0:00:45]

Let me just make sure you all can hear me and see me OK.  I’m looking in the Slack channel, where we are communicating.  If you haven’t used Slack yet, you can go to Bobrow.com/slack.  I’m just going to type that in: bobrow.com/slack, and that will give you an opportunity to put in your email address, then get that verified and connect up to our ARCHICAD training Slack workspace, where we’re communicating.  [0:01:18]

I can see Andrej, Scott, Susan, Sherry, Andy, Tracy, Gestur, Chris, Zlatko, Reg, Andrej again, Andy, and Christian and Jimmy.  OK, so we actually have about 24 people, it looks like, right now. Probably a few more will join us.  If you are getting into Slack, and you don’t see the 2020 channel, just click in the side bar on Channels and find 2020.  That’s where we’re going to be communicating when we have the training lessons.  Coaching calls are for the Thursday sessions, so that’s where we’re at right now, and you can send direct messages to each other.  [0:02:00]

If you see someone’s name in the side bar, you can do that, or you can go to Direct Messages and find their name by scrolling or searching, and so for example, Scott has sent me a direct message, which I’ll check out a little later.  Alright, so looks like everybody is hearing me, so we’ll get going with this.  So, we’ve been talking about legends as a resource that you can use for interacting and quickly getting access to frequently-used settings, and again, the concept in that case is that you have a bunch of elements, often with a text description saying what they are.  [0:02:46]

That’s a traditional legend that you might put onto a sheet, and if those elements are placed with the actual ARCHICAD tool that is used to draw them, then you can often eye drop them and be able to place them quickly.  Now, of course, the main use of legends is for putting things onto a sheet or multiple sheets as explanations, and another type of explanation that you put onto sheets are notes.  [0:03:21]

Now, we have notes for individual elements like pointing at an element as a certain type of roofing or insulation or wall type or some notes about how it’s going to be fabricated or installed or other things.  So, those are notes related to individual elements, and we’re going to be talking about the best ways to manage that data, but not today.  Today, we’re going to be talking about more general notes – the types of things that you put into the layout sheets next to the drawings or, in some cases, as a full sheet or several sheets of general notes and specifications.  [0:03:59]

So, let’s take a look in the sample project at just how this is set up because as I keep mentioning here and there, the sample project is simply used in this course as a way of demonstrating very easily, for me, in terms of my familiarity with it, but demonstrating great ways that you can set things up in your project.  Whether you use MasterTemplate, which this is based on, or any other template, these approaches are something that you can take advantage of.  [0:04:38]

So, let’s look at standard notes here, and so here we have the project.  We’re going to go to the layout book here, and after the title sheet, which has general information, and we will be talking about some of the ways that you can get reporting of your data and sheet indexes and things.  Of course, that will be coming later on in the course, but right now, as part of reusing data or doing it once and having it appear in multiple places, we’re going to look at the building specifications and conditions or, in this case, actually, we’ll focus on general notes and specifications.  [0:05:23]

So, I’m sure you’re all familiar with this idea, and probably almost all of you will use something like this, where you have a sheet with a lot of notes on it.  It can be graphically formatted with headings and indentation and numbering, or in some simpler cases, it may be just more of a plain text document.  Now, ARCHICAD is capable of creating formatted text.  This was something that wasn’t there at the beginning, but I think it was back in ARCHICAD 9 that the option was added to be able to format text as part of a block or a text element to make certain things bold and underlined, to do indentations, etc.  [0:06:18]

Now, what we don’t have, and I would say may never have in ARCHICAD is the ability to place text that has automatic numbering and the ability to do multiple columns.  Now, how is this created? This particular sheet was created from a view of something outside ARCHICAD.  So, let me just go back to the plan, and we’ll just put in some text, and I’ll just very briefly explain the limitations and the capabilities of the text tool.  Many of you will know this 100% by heart because you’ve been doing things a long time, and for others, you may learn a few things here.  [0:07:07]

So, if I click twice to place some text – so I click twice in the same place, and I say, “Here is some text,” alright.  You’ll notice that the text is rather small on screen.  I’m going to zoom in.  Actually, after I place it, I’ll just zoom in a little bit so we can see it better, and I have to wait for this first operation to set up ARCHICAD’s bookkeeping, so we’ve got a spinning beach ball for a moment, but that text has a default setting.  [0:07:42]

Right now, it’s got a background of yellow, which is rather odd here.  It’s just the last setting that was in the Text tool here, and it’s yellow background.  It’s got a frame, and it’s all underlined.  Now, of course, I can go into the text tool before I place it and change it so that it has perhaps a white background here or a background that matches whatever is the background of your screen.  We can also say that it doesn’t have a frame, and we can choose, perhaps, the font size to be a different size.  [0:08:22]

So, these are all settings. Of course, if I now click twice to place some text, we’ve got somewhat of a different look.  Now, if I go back in and look again, it was set for bold, italic, and underline – again, rather odd combination of things here, and we’ll go to some text again here.  Now, when we have the text, we can double-click on it, and we can put in some formatting.  For example, we can make this bold.  We can make this underlined, so we can do those sort of things. [0:09:04]

If we do hit the Enter or Return key, we can deal with multiple lines, and it keeps inheriting the formatting that I just said, but of course, I can change that.  So, this is standard word processing types of abilities, but nowhere here will you see anything that has numbering, nor will you see bullets, where you see little dots or other insignia or other icons at the beginnings of lines, and there’s no capability to do multiple columns.  We do have some rudimentary ability to wrap, so if I make this narrower, it will automatically flow onto the next line.  That is because the text, in this case, is set to wrap.  [0:09:54]

So, that’s sort of almost the limits of what we can do. There are some other settings we can look out, but I just wanted to point out that the things that we saw on the general notes page are not possible.  We can write in or paste in text that would be a long flow.  It could be as tall as you want, but it won’t automatically flow to multiple columns.  It won’t do numbering.  [0:10:20]

You can do indentation, so if I take this line here, and I click, saying I want to edit this line, I can do an indentation using these tab controls, and I don’t know if we can do Tab.  If I hit Tab, yeah, it does have some Tab ability for that.  Alright, but let’s look, then, at how we would get the layout sheet here with this.  [0:10:51]

So, this layout sheet is a drawing.  So, a drawing, when placed on a layout sheet, has a source.  In the most common instance, the source is another view within the project – often a working drawing like a plan or section or an elevation or a detail drawing, but sometimes it can be other types, like a 3D view from a saved viewpoint.  Now, in this case, the drawing source – it says it’s internal because it’s embedded, but it is actually – I don’t know if we can look at this here.  [0:11:32]

This particular one – this is the scale.  OK, so this particular one is embedded, so what does embedded mean?  It means that something was brought in from outside, and then the link was broke so it doesn’t require or will not update from an outside file.  Now, originally, this came from a .pdf, and I think most of you are aware that you can place .pdf files onto any drafting view, so you can place it on the plan or in a worksheet or on a layout.  [0:12:12]

Now, let’s take a look at how this was done.  In this case, it’s not a live link because this is a sample project, and so it is just for simplicity and for actual control of this information here.  The link was broken.  We actually decided at the very early stages of MasterTemplate that one of our clients had shared this particular general notes and specifications for use on screen, but he didn’t want the Word document to be provided so that it potentially could be used without his permission and maybe give some legal liability.  [0:12:58]

Let’s look at how this is created and managed and how you can do your own.  So, if I go out to my files and folders in the finder, and I go to MasterTemplate in this case, I’ve got a master specifications file that is a Word document, and then a version that is a .pdf.  Now, let’s look at the Word document here.  So, I’ll just open that up.  You can do the same thing in pages – in Apple Pages, it certainly has more than enough capability to do these things.  [0:13:35]

It’s not the same or not as full-featured as Microsoft Word, but for this sort of purpose, you can do pretty much the same thing in Pages.  Now, what am I looking at here?  I’m looking at one sheet and a second sheet, and you notice a bunch of text in the upper-left corner, and it’s very, very small.  Now, I’m going to go in and change my view.  Let’s see.  We’re in Word.  I’m going to change my view – my zoom – from saying to show me the whole page to, let’s say, 50%.  Then, we should be able to look at it.  Actually, 50% is still pretty small.  We’ll go and view this – zoom to 100%.  [0:14:27]

Alright, so this is now 100%.  Now, if I drag through this text, and we look in word, this is a very small font – 5 point., so in the U.S., we commonly will have text on a page be 10 point.  It could be 12 or 8 or 9.  5 point is very small.  Now, I can zoom in on this.  Let’s again, zoom.  Let’s see.  Do 200%, and now it becomes a little bit more readable.   [0:15:04]

Now, why was this text placed on this page in such a small format?  It’s because, at least up until the last time I checked, Microsoft Word had a maximum page size.  We’ll go to the page setup here.  There’s a maximum page size that was, I think, maybe about up to 22 inches or something like that in width or the longest dimension.  You couldn’t do a full architectural drawing image in Microsoft Word at full scale.  [0:15:39]

So, the workaround for creating an image that would be placed onto a page was to create a reduced size – simplest was to reduce it by 50% and reduce the text by 50%.  So, when it was expanded and placed, it would look normal.  Now, in Word, if I click here, let’s see.  I haven’t used this in a long time.  You can see there are columns here, and up – a little hard to see exactly.  It’s faint at the top.  These are the columns.  [0:16:21]

Now, let’s see what happens if I select some text here.  I’m going to copy it and just, after this number 7, I’ll hit Enter, and you can see it’s number 8, and I’ll hit paste, and you can see that some of this went down, and it became 8, 9, 10, and then let’s see.  It should go – I think this should go down to – oh, I probably didn’t quite hit the bottom of the page here.  [0:16:52]

We’ll just paste in again, and now you can see it’s gone on to the next column.  So, I haven’t worked with Word for a while, so I am a little vague on the column structure, but the idea here is that in Word, you can set up multiple columns, and let’s just say that we decided we need something more in here, and I paste in some stuff.  OK, so these are automatically being numbered by Word, and they’re flowing from column to column.  [0:17:24]

So, this is something that we can’t do in ARCHICAD.  You could manually create one column of text, and you could create another column and another column, but editing this stuff is going to be cumbersome and laborious, and you have to number everything.  So, if you did insert something like wanting another clause here, then you would have to manually update those numbers.  [0:17:49]

So, it’s far better to manage this type of specifications report or general notes in a word processing tool like Word or Pages.  So, I’m not going to go into how you set up multiple columns in Word right now.  I want to just jump into how you place this onto an ARCHICAD sheet.  So, imagine that you’ve already got this set up, and in fact, if you get MasterTemplate, then you do have this particular placeholder – this particular framework already set up, which will work for a particular page size right out of the box.  [0:18:40]

Now, let’s say you’ve got these columns here. What do you do?  Well, first of all, I’m going to save this as – I don’t want to overwrite the one that’s in the MasterTemplate area, and I’ll just put it into my Downloads folder, and we’ll just call this Master Specifications Full Page Sample and save it, and then I’m going to go and save as a .pdf file, and we can leave the same name here, the .pdf, and say Export.  [0:19:16]

So, it says paper size of section 1 is different from the printer page size, so it does have some questions about matching.  Let’s ignore that particular little detail and just say yes, I want this.  Since your margins are pretty small, and some of the text might be cut off when you print, but I’m going to be putting it in the middle of a plot sheet, and there will be borders around it, so I don’t need to worry about that warning. So, I’m just going to say yes, go ahead and do that.  [0:19:50]

Now, let’s see what happens in ARCHICAD, and let me just delete – actually, let’s just create a new layout sheet so we can see how this works.  I’ll create a new layout sheet here, and we’ll say Notes Test in this layout sheet.  We’ll come in blank, and I’ll go to the File menu now, External Content, and say Place External Drawing.  [0:20:28]

So, when I place an external drawing, it will ask me what type of file I want – in other words, am I looking for a specific type of .pdf or .dwg, or do I just want to see everything that it could place?  I’ll go find the one I want.  So, it can place the .pdf.  It cannot place the Word document directly.  I’ll just say to open the .pdf.  When you say to open the .pdf, you notice that it gives a little preview of the pages, and this first page now has most of two columns filled in, and there are several other pages, so the idea here is that you would have a specifications document that has multiple pages, and on this particular sheet, I’m going to put Page 1.  [0:21:14]

Then, where am I going to put it?  Well, I have the option to click anywhere.  I’ll put it down in this corner.  That may not be the right place, but let’s look at the size.  Clearly, this is smaller than we want it to be, and that’s very easy to change.  We can just go from 100% to 200% here.  It jumps up, or in some cases, we may say – let’s see.  Where is it?  There’s an option here to Fit to Layout.  [0:21:46]

So, this is a good, quick way to just get something to fit on the page. It will look at what’s defined in the layout as the boundaries, so you can see the printable area of the layout is in blue, and it’s gotten as big as it could go and still fit within the top and bottom blue, and then it’s centered between left and right.  So, it’s not 213%.  Now, if I want this to be a uniform size that I can control in terms of the text, then I probably want to do this numerically like 200%, and then the text that was 5 point in Microsoft Word will become double that, or 10 point text.  [0:22:37]

Now, generally, we don’t need a title underneath it because we’re going to have the title up at the top.  So, I’ll simply go with this particular drawing selected and say that I would like to have no title.  When I do that, this disappears.  Then, of course, I can drag this up to a convenient location on the page here.  Looks like something may be cropped a little bit.  That may have to do with the Word settings that it was warning me about or that the page didn’t quite – or that the page setup and the page didn’t quite match the Word document, so that would have to be double-checked, but the idea here is that I can put on a .pdf onto this sheet, and I can maintain the Word document if I just jump over there and update this very easily.  [0:23:38]

So, how would you update it?  Let’s just go on and, again, I’ll just add some more stuff at the end because it will be very easy to see the changes.  I’ll just paste it in.  You’ll see it’s going to the next column and the next column and the next column.  I’ll just keep on going, and it will have – if I scroll over, you’ll see it’s starting to get into the fourth column here.  [0:24:02]

So, I’ll go and save this updated Word document, and then save a copy of it as a .pdf in the same place.  It’ll ask me if I want to overwrite and replace it.  I’ll say yes, this is the latest version of it. Now, it warms me about the margins being small, etc., so that may be something I need to adjust, but let’s go back here to ARCHICAD, and right-click on this and say Update.  We’ll see in a moment that it’s now got 3 ½ columns filled in.  [0:24:45]

So, now let’s just talk strategically about how you might use this.  If you have a set of notes that you typically place onto your project construction document set, and you put it into Word, you can use it as a boiler plate document that, for every project, you modify as needed.  I’m sure that some portion of it is standard from project to project – possibly as much as 90-95%.  It may be the same, depending on the type of work that you do and what you put into these notes.  [0:25:26]

So, let’s say that it’s 80% the same.  So, you create a copy of your Word document for the new project that you’re working on.  You rework it as needed for that 20% that’s new or different, and then you save it with the name of the project, and then save a .pdf and place this onto your layout sheet.  Now, if you want to do the second page, it’s no problem.  Just going to right-click here and say New Layouts, and we’re just going to create Notes Page 2. [0:26:07]

So, I’m just creating a new layout each time, and again, this is empty, and I’ll go to File, External Content, Place External Drawing, and I’ll just go back to the same one, and in this case, I’ll say to give me page 2, like that.  I can place it and then take this.  It’s actually just got some column headings here because this was just a framework for you to put your own materials into.  I’ll take it up to the 200%, like this, and then possibly center it.  [0:26:49]

If we wanted to make it line up, we can say to show the other drawing or the other sheet as a trace reference, and now you can see the background.  So, I could drag this one to small to that trace reference there so that these columns, as you flip from page to page, would be exactly aligned.  So, that’s using the trace reference, which I can turn on or off using this icon.  [0:27:25]

So, as you work in the project, and you update your notes, these things can be updated any time.  You simply click on the update button here on the sheet or right-click on the drawing element on the sheet, or you can use the Drawing Manager, which is available from this little button here called the Project Chooser.  You can open up the Drawing Manager, and in that Drawing Manager, we can see, for example, these things here have been modified. [0:28:01]

We can say to update them, or we could literally, before printing, go and select all of these or hit Command+A or Ctrl+A and use Update.  So, Drawing Manager allows you to just bring everything up to date whenever you want to see it.  If you want to do a global update, maybe go grab a coffee or take a phone call.  Sometimes, for larger projects, this may take a few minutes.  For smaller projects, it may be done in a matter of seconds.  [0:28:31]

So, we talked about how, in general terms, to set up a lengthy set of notes in a word processor with multiple columns and sort of numbering that can be easily set up in a word processor and formatting, etc.  Then, we talked about bringing it in via .pdf and potentially multiple pages as well.  Now, if you put this into your template, like we have in MasterTemplate, then you can simply go – let’s say here.  If I go to this sheet, this sheet had a set of information that it was referencing, and just imagine that in your template, it’s referencing your boiler plate standard notes.  [0:29:25]

Maybe you have something that the top that says, “These are boiler plate notes.  Please replace with the notes for the specific project,” so you don’t make a mistake and think that you’ve already got your notes in there.  So, you should definitely minimize the likelihood that you’re going to make a mistake.  So, we know, in this case, that this is a general boiler plate standard set of notes, and it really needs to be linked instead to the notes for this project.  [0:29:58]

Well, here’s how you do it. You right-click on this, and you say, “Link Drawing To.”  So, instead of updating, we’re going to link it.  When you start a new project, or at some point after you start a new project, you’re going to link it to the .pdf file for this project.  So, instead of being an internal view, we’re going to go to an external source and browse and find the one for this particular project and say to open it.  [0:30:32]

It says, “Which one?”  Alright, this is page 1 of it.  I’ll say this one, and I’ll say to place it.  So, what’s happening is it will update here.  Now, this is interesting in terms of the size, so I guess the size for the original one was set larger than what we’re working with here, and in fact, possibly the sheets.  This is a 24” x 36”. Let me see – this 24” x 36” is the same size here.  Oh, I guess the original notes were in at 150% instead of 200%, and that’s why when I updated, it got smaller, but if you have set your template to use your boiler plate notes .pdf, and you now have another .pdf that was set up the same way, then we won’t have any issue with the page size changing. [0:31:35]

We’ll just simply be updating it. So, when you start a project, and you have a good template, you should have, in the layout book, some of these standard sets of materials that are already there and ready for you to simply update. Now, I updated this manually.  I went to this particular page, and of course, I could go to the next page here and update it to page 2 there, but we can go and do management with the Drawing Manager as well.  [0:32:10]

So, Drawing Manager allows me to see.  For example, let’s go to – whoops.  I didn’t really want to dock that.  Oh, it’s been docked in here.  Trying to undock this particular – the Drawing Manager tab.  Oh, here it is.  It’s this.  At the title bar, if I go grab this and move it down, let me get this so it becomes just free-standing.  [0:32:51]

Alright, so when you’re moving around palettes, and generally most palettes are smaller.  They’re the navigator or the tool box or something else.  If you bring it close to a side or the top, it will, at least on the Mac version, attempt to dock to it.  I know on the PC it does some similar things, but I think there’s some subtle differences.  [0:33:15]

In any event, here’s the Drawing Manager, and we can look at these and say, “What’s the status?”  We can sort by status.  Here, you can see all of these are OK.  When I click on this header and scroll down to the ones that need checking, these are internal here.  We can go down to ones that are embedded.  In this case, we have these specifications that are embedded, so these are the ones that were put in as examples, but in general, if we go to the specifications ones that are outside sources, let’s just see.  [0:33:57]

In terms of using Drawing Manager, I don’t want to get into a whole big explanation, but you can sort based on any of the columns, and if I click on source view, it will group this into the ones that have no source view embedded there – the ones that are part of this particular project in the view map.  So, particular views, and then as we get down towards the bottom, we’ll find ones that are located somewhere else.  So, for example, these three specifications are linked to an outside file.  [0:34:35]

So, these are ones that I just link to the downloaded .pdf or the .pdf that was in the Downloads folder.  So, you can – when you have the specifications linked to your boiler plate one, you can select them and perhaps bring this out here. You can then use the link and go find that, so you can manage several of these pages all at once, and in some cases, you can go and select multiple things like this here and then use an option – I see that these are embedded.  [0:35:23]

If you pick multiple things that are in the list that are linked to something else, you can link them all together here, and in some cases, you can – let’s see.  If we do this – if you have ones of different types, and I’m looking for – there’s nothing else here.  In this particular sample project, these are all embedded for simplicity of delivering the file to people who have MasterTemplate.  [0:36:00]

If you have multiple files with different sources, the button will change.  Instead of Link To, it will say Link or Find the file within a folder.  It allows you to actually tell it to go look in a folder, and then it will find the corresponding matches of the page numbers of the documents.  So, that’s something that perhaps I’ll show you in a little while using the new project in MasterTemplate as opposed to the sample project.  [0:36:35]

Let’s see if you have any questions or comments on what I’ve been doing so far here, and what you think.  Alright, so Taren.  “Is there an alternate way to invoke text editing mode?  Sometimes when I double-click on an existing text block, I inadvertently insert a bunch of spaces.”  OK, I’m not quite sure that I’ve ever experienced inadvertently inserting some spaces.  Let’s just look at that particular question, just in the context of text item.  [0:37:14]

So, we’ll close up the Drawing Manager right now.  Let’s just look at some basic text editing methods as a little side note to help those of you who are a little confused.  Text elements have selection handles at the corners and at the midpoint.  You can see there’s a little tiny checkmark there, and if I hover over this and find the midpoint, it’s not hard to find that.  Let’s just go and see if I can find the corner.  [0:37:46]

So, if I click on this one, you can see that here is the corners, and here is the center.  So, these are points that you can always use to select.  Now, when the Arrow tool has the magnet active, you can usually go on top of the body of the text anywhere, and it will pre-select to say, “Oh, this is something you could select.”  Then, I can go and select this by clicking on it.  [0:38:20]

Then, to edit it, I can do either of two things: with the Arrow tool active, I can just double-click in the middle of it, and it will switch to editing mode and place the cursor close to where I double-clicked.  Then I can go and type in some things or change the formatting.  Now, let me deselect it by clicking outside it or go out of text editing mode.  [0:38:47]

The other way that you can do it is if you’re in the Text tool itself, and you have the text selected, you can single-click, and it will edit.  So, when you have the Text tool active, you can single-click anywhere you’d like.  When you have the Arrow tool active, you need to double-click to go in there, and the double-click will only work if the magnet is on.  So, if the magnet is not on, let’s just see what happens.  [0:39:16]

I can’t select it by clicking.  You notice that it gets this selection rectangle.  If I do include the corner of it in my selection rectangle, when I click again, now it has selected it because the selection rectangle was around that corner, but clicking in here, it will deselect.  It won’t allow me to edit the text.  So, the only way that you can use the selection arrow for this or, let’s say, the best way to use the selection arrow for this is to have the magnet on and then click once to select it, double-click to start editing, and now you’re in the editing mode there, and when you’re done with the editing, you click outside.  [0:40:03]

Now, by the way, if you want to toggle the magnet, Quick Select, Status, Off or On.  You can use the space bar on your keyboard.  Now, maybe that’s what you were doing.  I’m not sure because that could give you multiple spaces.  Notice this icon here for the Quick Select magnet?  If I press down the space bar, that’s the character you use between words, not the Shift key, but the space bar.  If I press it down, you notice that the magnet goes away.  If I release it, it comes back, or if it’s off, and I press down the space bar, it comes on.  [0:40:41]

So, I can leave it off if I like and then double-click here, and here is where it added a space because as I was double-clicking it, the space bar was still held down, and when it added a space – because now if I obviously type in spaces, it’s going to add those, so maybe that would account for your issue.  If you want to avoid that, just simply go and turn on the Quick Select magnet, and have that the default, and then you won’t need to use the space bar to select the text by clicking in the body of it.  [0:41:25]

OK, let’s see if there are some other questions here.  Alright, Taren says, “Great explanations.  Thank you.”  Diane.  “Is it possible to preset bringing in a drawing, internal or external, onto a layout sheet without a title and also fit to the edges of the drawing?”  OK, so this is sort of a question of best practices for the settings of elements before you place them.  So, if we go to the layout sheet here and just take – actually, let’s just go here.  [0:42:08]

So, I’m going to take this layout or this drawing, and I’m going to look at its settings.  The settings here, in this case, are set at 200%, and the title is set at No Title.  Those are the two key things that we modified earlier.  Another subtle thing has to do with where it’s anchored – in this case, at the bottom left corner.  So, if I change the size, this is going to remain locked. Let me just change this to centered, which means that if I did change this percentage, it would get larger or smaller from the center out.  [0:42:51]

Now, this is probably a good setting for drawings like this that you want to fit the whole page.  So, how could I save the setting so that when I place a new drawing, it comes in this way?  Well, there are two general ways that we can do it.  One is to eye drop it.  In other words, if I eye drop it and pick up the settings, then when I go and place another one shortly afterward, it will use those settings, and the other is you can use favorites, and that way, you can at any point go to this setting versus another standard setting like, “Hey, I’m placing detail drawings right now, and I want the title to be at a certain relation to the detail drawing.”  [0:43:37]

So, let’s just see what happens if I say, “OK, I didn’t make any change other than the anchor point, and I’m now going to eye drop this.”  So, I hold down the option key on the Mac or Alt key on Windows, and the eye dropper came up. We’re now in the Drawing tool, and I’m going to just delete this for simplicity.  Now, with the Drawing tool active, you’ll notice that it’s set for 200%, and if I scroll over, it’s set as anchored in the center, and it’s set as – interesting.  [0:44:14]

It didn’t pick up the drawing title – the fact that I wanted no title, so I’m going to just change that manually here.  Now, having made those changes before I place it, if I click on this, we do have a snap point at the center.  So, I’m in the Drawing tool, and I can click to place, or I can go File, External Content, Place External Drawing.  Either way, it’s going to say, “What do you want to select?”  I’ll say that I’d like to go get an external file. [0:44:47]

I’ll say Browse.  We’ll go find this file here, choose, in this case, page 1, place, and interesting.  It did anchor it in the center.  It did have no title, but the 200% was obviously not retained here.  So, let’s see if – let’s say the 200% here.  That works.  Let me eye drop this.  So, ideally, when you eye drop something, it will pick up all those settings, but let’s go and double-check that the settings are there.  [0:45:32]

So, in other words, I’ve just eye dropped it.  I have nothing selected.  This is the default, and I open this up, and we’ve got it centered here. The magnification is not – although it says 200%, it’s grey, which means that apparently it’s not allowing us to save the percentage in the default.  Now, let’s see if we can go and save this as a favorite.  [0:46:00]

So, if I go click on the favorites icon here in the upper-left corner of the Drawing Default settings and click on the plus to add a new favorite, we can say that this might be Notes Without Title at 200%.  We’ll see if it works in terms of whether the 200% is part of the favorite successfully or not.  I will now say to save this as a favorite, and now you can see that this is a favorite for drawings, and there’s another one called AMT Drawing Tool Default.  [0:46:40]

So, this is another favorite that is more commonly used for the drawings.  So, we’ll just say OK.  Let’s see if I place this again.  I’ll go find that center point here, and we’ll go reference this here.  OK, it’s still not picking up the percent.  Now, if I select this, and I apply the favorite here – so Notes without Title, 200%, it did work.  So, the favorite does have that data in there.  [0:47:19]

Now, let me just delete this again, and let me just activate the favorite this way.  So, in other words, I’m going to select this favorite, and double-click it.  Now, let’s see if it works – if the favorite, for some reason is able to maintain that information.  One more try.  Nope.  So, the favorite – when we apply it by double-clicking on this, it has that information, but as a default, it’s just not allowing me to override that.  [0:47:57]

Now, by the way, the centered placement is not actually right for this particular use.  It’s the center of the full sheet, but it’s not the center of the working area, since we have a title block that takes up some space.  So, this center point that I was hovering over and using as a reference is useful, but we may want to put in something else.  So, let’s just see.  This is an interesting little side note.  [0:48:33]

If I draw a line between – oh, let’s just say this corner here and that corner there, and then select it, there’s going to be a hot spot right here.  That hot spot might be a useful reference.  Now, I don’t really want to have a line in space there, but I could put a hot spot here and hover over this until I find where that snap point is and place it.  Then, I’ll get rid of the line.  [0:49:02]

So, now it’s a little hard to see, but there is a little tiny X there that’s a snap point.  So, the hot spot tool is a way that you can mark something that you’d like to snap to as a reference.  Now, this could be – let me just get rid of this drawing and replace it again.  Instead of snapping to the center point of the sheet, I could snap to this hot spot.  Now, that hot spot is something that’s on this particular layout, just like every layout typically will have one or more drawings or other things placed onto it.  [0:49:43]

So, it’s only on this layout and not on other ones, but if I wanted, I could put that onto the master.  So, the master has the title block here.  It can also have other things, like guides, like these snap points.  The snap point will not print, but it’s available as a drafting guide to help you.  So, if I were to take this, and I’m just going to cut it here.  So, I just hit Command+X or Ctrl+X here, and let’s just go to the AMT standard 24” x 36” sheet here.  AMT Standard 24” x 36”.  [0:50:27]

So, this is the title block here, and now I’m going to go and paste in that little tiny hot spot.  It will come in its original location, which is where I had reasonably, carefully figured out where to go, and now, if I go back to any sheet that uses that – so we’re on, I think, this general notes and specifications – actually, this Notes Test 1.  There will be a snap point here. So, this is standard 24” x 36”, and we should have a snap point.  [0:51:07]

Let’s see. Standard 24” x 36”.  I thought that’s the one I did, and we should see that snap in there.  Let’s see.  Standard, 24” x 36”.  Yeah.  This is certainly here.  So, if I hover over this, and we obviously have this snap point here, but there should be another one in there.  That is a little odd there.  Let’s do our refresh/rebuild, and let me just go to this other sheet here.  It’s possible that it needs to refresh in some way.  Let me just change it to a different sheet background here and then change this back, and yeah. There is the snap point.  [0:52:09]

So, well, no.  Not seeing it.  OK, so this is a little bit of an anomaly that I’m surprised at.  In general, we should be able to have snap points that are on the master that you can use, but there may be some issue with that.  Maybe the layer setting is a little off.  So, let me go back.  Just one last test for that before we move on to another thing.  [0:52:40]

This is the standard 24” x 36”, and let’s just select this, and let’s just – oh, so it is on the layer.  So, it’s something that would be there.  Let me just go and just to verify if I put in a line, say from here to here, and this line is something that – we’ll see if that shows up on this sheet here, and we’re not seeing the master, so maybe I’m using a different layout here.  Standard, 24 – oh, you know what?  I think was putting it on this one.  That’s probably what it is.  AMT 2 Standard.  So, user error.  Be very careful, or let’s say you may save yourself a lot of trouble.  [0:53:27]

Let me just get rid of this one, and we’ll select this.  I don’t mind leaving it here, but I’m going to copy it again, and we’ll go to this standard one and paste there, and now, when I go to this notes test, there we have that X.  It’s just a faint grey.  So, user error.  I put that little guide onto the wrong master, so therefore it wasn’t being seen.  [0:53:54]

Alright, let’s see.  Hopefully I’ve answered that question from Diane.  Alright, Tom said, “Do you have any tricks to create an updated Word doc from a .pdf without retyping the whole thing?”  So, in general, when you have a .pdf, it’s intended for printing purposes or viewing on screen.  .pdf internal formatting does not generally have paragraphs and columns as a reference.  It’s literally saying, “Here’s a line.  Here’s another line.  Here’s another line.  Here’s another line.”  [0:54:37]

So, if you were to copy things from a .pdf, you may not end up with something that is as easily usable as you’d like.  So, let’s just take a quick look at that.  If I go to the .pdf that we just created and open it up – so, if you have a .pdf, maybe supplied by a manufacturer, or maybe you lost track of your original notes here.  I’m just going to select this.  I can select this text.  Let’s see.  [0:55:14]

Copy this here, and let’s just go back into ARCHICAD, for example, and we’ll go to this, and I’m just going to open up this text for editing here.  Select all, delete it, and paste.  Alright, so I’ve just pasted in the text from the .pdf, and we’ll just drag this over so it’s a little bit easier to read.  OK, so you can see that, in this case, the numbering has become just text in the .pdf, just like any other text.  It’s not something special, and it will not automatically number, but it will carry that across.  [0:56:07]

So, you can basically copy things from the .pdf document and paste it into a Word document and then do some quick re-editing, so if I go back into the Word document here – so, this is the actual Word document.  If I go down and paste in this text here – so, this is text that I just pasted from the .pdf.  So, let’s go back to the .pdf and just see what the limitations are.  The .pdf, if I drag through this, I can go down to one column.  [0:56:52]

Let’s see. If I select multiple columns, you can see it’s selected the upper part of this.  It didn’t select the lower part, so it doesn’t quite understand the relationship of the columns to each other in the flow.  Probably what you’d have to do is select a column at a time and paste it into a Word document and have the Word document reflow across the multiple columns.  [0:57:20]

So, that may be as good as you can get.  Now, the numbering here – this has the numbers embedded in the .pdf.  When you paste it into Word, you will either use those, or you’ll need to take them out manually, bit by bit, and have Word put in its numbering system.  If you’re in Word, and I don’t use Word a whole lot – if I click in here or click on the number here, you can see that that’s highlighting all of these numbers, which allows me, I believe, to format them – possibly make them bold or bigger and maybe do something with the numbering system.  [0:57:58]

I guess if I go into here, you can see that this is the numbering system for the subitems at one level or another level.  So, there are some formatting things in Word.  I haven’t worked with Word on this level for a long time, so I’m not going to try to explain how to use Word for this, but in general, Word will allow you to do quite a bit of careful formatting, and that can then be carried into ARCHICAD beautifully.  [0:58:28]

Let’s see other questions here, before we move on.  Alright, Tom says, “Great.  Thanks.”  Alright, Iain.  “Is parameter transfer set for all items?”  OK, not quite sure what you mean by that.  Certainly, when you use the eye dropper, you can pick up the settings of an element and then be ready to place a new element of a similar type with similar settings.  Now, there is something that you did bring to mind there, Iain.  [0:59:04]

When we eye drop something – let’s go to this page where I’ve got a drawing on here, and I eye drop.  OK, so when we eye drop it, it’s picking up the settings of this element.  It’s making sure that this tool is active, and some or all of those settings are carried over, but as you may recall from my lesson on favorites and where I talked about parameter transfer, there are some settings under the Edit menu, Element Settings, Element Transfer Settings that refer to limitations.  [0:59:59]

Basically, right now, the one that is highlighted here is going to exclude some things about the size, so it’s very possible that this may have affected it, although, you notice that this star there indicates that transfer all settings is the currently active default.  So, I don’t think that that was the issue there in terms of being able to pick up the settings of the drawing, but this is something that you can use selectively when you inject the settings into an existing element, whether you want to transfer all the settings or possibly exclude some of them so that they don’t change.  [1:00:46]

I’ve covered that in detail in a previous lesson.  OK, let’s see.  Any other questions in Slack here?  Marlene, hi.  “Can you transfer custom sash and frame sizes only or save these as favorites?”  So, we’re getting into a whole lot of questions that are off the topic of the general notes and specifications, so I’ll just answer this briefly.  There are limitations to what you can save in terms of settings in that for the most part, all of the sub-parameters of elements all go together, or they don’t go together.  [1:01:33]

So, you can’t, for example, save a style for a custom sash setting – you know, say the width of the sash or the material or the surface of the sash, or the sizes of the frame.  You cannot do that as a group.  Oh, OK. I want to put this type of style on this sash or this type of style on the frame.  It’s an unfortunate limitations.  Perhaps, at some point, GraphiSoft will develop a system where you can have parts of windows or doors that have styles, and then you can apply that.  [1:02:08]

I do know that CADImage, in their commercial add-ons, does have that implemented, so in some cases, using the CADImage windows or doors, you can pick styles for particular parts of an element.  So, they’ve done some good work there.  OK, so I’m going to move on, then, to the next section of this lesson, since we’re at the 1-hour mark, and I want to cover some other parts of the use of notes.  [1:02:42]

So, here we have – we go beyond the general notes pages, and we’ll look at something like the floor plans here.  Now, when I go to the floor plans, we’ll see several drawings – in this case, different stories and a demo plan and a new and demo plan, and we’re going to see now 2 text blocks here that look similar and are intended for some notes related to plans, and then some other notes and legends over here.  [1:03:17]

So, we’re going to be looking at how these are set up and the options that you might consider.  So, this is a sample project, so it’s for educational purposes, and it has 2 version of the floor plan keynotes.  So, notes that you put for a particular drawing type, like floor plans or ceiling plans – structural plans, lighting plans, site plans, etc.  You may put them on one sheet, like the site plan notes might only go on one sheet, but if you have a 10-story building, you might have floor plan notes that go on every one of those sheets that has the floor plan.  [1:03:56]

So, you can place text here and edit it, so this is just a text block.  Let’s just see if this has got a number here.  What happens when I hit the Enter key?  It just goes to the left, and let’s just say 1.02.  Hit the Tab key and say More Notes Here, and hit the Enter key, and 1.03.  So, I can set up where the tabs are, and I can manually number it, but obviously, if I were to slip things in, these would not renumber.  [1:04:35]

Now, this text here – whatever I’ve got – if I select it, I can copy it, and I can go to another sheet.  I’m going to go to another sheet that is – let’s say finish plan here. I don’t know.  So, this is a different usage, but I could go and paste this in.  So, if you create a set of notes, and it’s only going to be used in one place, you can do it right on the sheet. If it’s going to be used in a couple of places, it’s certainly possible to just copy and paste.  That’s the simple, basic way to do it.  [1:05:15]

However, on the other hand, if those notes are going to be seen in multiple places, then it’s better to do it in one place and have a reference.  So, let me go back to the plan sheet and look at this one.  So, this comes from a worksheet.  So, what are worksheets?  They are a part of your project map that, in addition to your virtual building on the stories and your views of the virtual buildings in sections, elevations, interior elevations, and 3D documents, you have a group of views available for 2D information: worksheets and details.  [1:06:01]

Now, they function very much the same way with just some slight variations.  I recommend that you use details for what you would call a construction drawing detail, and then you use worksheets for any other 2D information.  So, in this case, worksheets can have some reference materials.  So, these are some library parts that you might use in detail drawings.  There’s some scratch pad. There’s sketch views. There’s notes. There’s various things, and let’s look at the floor plan key notes here.  [1:06:42]

So, the floor plan key notes – if we zoom out a little bit, you’ll say, “Oh, that’s what we were looking at on the plan.”  Now, I’m going to go and just edit it here.  I’ll copy this and then go in and paste.  Alright, then we’ll just renumber this.  This looks a little bit more normal, even though it’s just text. Now, why did this grey box get longer?  Because in this particular case, there are a bunch of blank lines.  [1:07:16]

So, I can just get rid of those blank lines.  They were just for sort of educational purposes, and they took up a certain amount of space.  So, I’ve now added more notes here, and I can do whatever I need to to make it complete.  When I go back to the sheet here, if I use the Update – I’ll go to the layout book here and use the Update.  We’ll see that this updates.  It’s updating all of the drawings on the sheet because I used the general update, and you can see it’s now updated, and I guess this is now partially obscured.  [1:08:00]

It got a little bit bigger in both directions.  If I right-click on it and bring it to the front, we’ll see the information there.  So, this is updated.  Now, I did it in one place. Where else will it show up?  Well, in the sample project, we actually have another floor plan sheet here, and when I go to that sheet and update – well, let me update just this one thing.  Update that one, and you’ll see that it updates as well, and if I go to the second level plan – now this one is just text.  [1:08:46]

So, basically, right now I’ve got that particular worksheet placed on the ground floor of both the small project set up here as well as the other variation where it’s a large project set, but you can imagine this being on 2, 3, 5, 10 – whatever number of stories. Now, here’s a general note about updating things.  When you have a drawing placed on a sheet, you can have it set up with a manually-resized frame.  That means it’s cropped in to fit nicely, or you can say that you want to fit frame to drawing, and now you can see it automatically is the right size.  [1:09:37]

So, if I were to go and add more things, it would just grow.  Now, sometimes you’d have to move it around on the page, and you may run into some issues where it’s not fitting properly, but still, this fit frame to drawing is a good one for this type of purpose.  It doesn’t accidentally get cropped off, and of course, you don’t want to have other notes or other information that you thought you had added, and they don’t show up on the output because the frame cropped them because that’s so easy to miss.  [1:10:10]

So, best practice here would be to fit frame to drawing. Now, this is looking a little bit cramped in terms of it being a grey background and this being right out to the edge.  Let’s just take a quick side detour and ask if there are some settings that allow me to make this look better.  Well, the drawing itself is basically getting its view from the worksheet.  Our ARCHICAD view is pointing to the worksheets, and there are no options here for the frame to have a boundary.  [1:10:53]

If you did put a line on the outside here, then you have the option of a boundary.  I’ll just try that, and you’ll see that it has an extra line now.  So, I’ve just now said that this particular view – I want to put a frame around it a certain gap away.  Where is the original frame coming?  Well, if I right-click on this and say to open the source view, it will take me back to the key notes.  Sorry, I was looking at it, and then the source view, if I’m doing a text block, we do have some options for text blocks to say that I would like to have a space between the text and the boundary.  [1:11:38]

Let’s just do 10 point and see what that does.  See, now that’s a little bit bigger.  Maybe I’ll take it a little bit more – 15 point here.  Now, you can’t do it different on the top, bottom, and sides.  It’s uniform, but it certainly gives you some ability to make it look more comfortable on the sheet.  So, now I go back to the sheet here, and remember, I’ve added an extra boundary, which I don’t need, but let’s just go and update this, and we’ll see what it’s doing now.  [1:12:19]

So, now, of course, I don’t really want that frame, so let’s see.  Here I can say to turn off the border line.  That’s called a border as opposed to a frame, and just turn that off there.  So, those are some options for formatting it, but the basic principle that I wanted to bring out is that if you’re putting notes onto a sheet that relate to drawings on the sheet as a whole, you have 2 general options.  One is to put things directly onto the sheet that you maintain on that sheet and can copy to another sheet if you wish, or you can create the information in a worksheet and have it placed potentially on multiple sheets.  [1:13:04]

As long as you’re just keeping everything up to date, then you do the work in one place and save having to update it in multiple.  So, that’s in general the best practices method that I teach is how can you leverage ARCHICAD’s structure to do things one and have them show in multiple places?  Let’s see if there are any comments in here.  So, Chris says, “I use a program called Frames Express.  It’s a multi-clipboard, which works very well using short abbreviations.”  OK, excellent.  There are definitely a lot of utility programs that are helpful. You could have a full A4 sheet of notes with the abbreviation of – say, EL or something like that.  [1:13:52]

It would place that into the note box, and you can still have it retain formatting or not, so this is called Frames Express, and I haven’t heard of it.  Maybe it’s something on the PC.  I certainly know of some useful ones on the Mac.  There’s something called Text Expander, which probably is somewhat similar.  So, Susan says, “How do you place a worksheet item onto a layout?”  The same way that you place any drawing onto a layout.  You go and open up the view map, find it, and drag it onto the sheet, or you use the organizer to drag a view onto a layout.  [1:14:31]

So, I can give a little quick demonstration of that in a moment.  Tom says, “Do you usually keep your layouts with manual update?”  So, this is the matter of – you could say personal preference, but it definitely depends upon the project.  So, think about it.  If you have a small project, and everything updates very quickly whenever you go to any view, then auto-update is great.  You go to a layout sheet and wait a second or 5 seconds and everything’s up to date. [1:15:09]

On the other hand, some drawings take longer to update, particularly elevations or sections, and sometimes, if you have a sheet, for example, of interior elevations, you may have 20 drawings on that sheet, and they may each take a few seconds to update, so if you have them set to auto-update, as soon as you go to that sheet, bang!  You’re waiting.  You cannot really do much until it’s finished the update.  [1:15:38]

I like the manual update because it makes it easy to just flip through sheets until you find what you want to look for, and then you can decide when you want to update things, but it’s up to you.  There’s nothing wrong with auto-update.  If your project is small enough, your computer is fast enough, and you aren’t bothered by the short delay every time you go to a new sheet, then it updates it.  That’s really up to you.  [1:16:10]

Alright, Chris says, “You can save a series of notes as the same abbreviation, and it comes up with a list of these.”  OK, interesting.  So, you can use – it sounds like a very sophisticated tool.  Frames Express.  OK.  Let’s just look at Susan’s question of how do you place these onto a sheet.  So, basically, I’m on a layout sheet here.  I’m looking at the layout book. I can switch in the navigator to my view map, and then I can go and grab any view and drag it onto the sheet.  [1:16:47]

So, for example, here’s the demo legend.  Here’s another worksheet.  I can literally just drag it onto the sheet, and it will go find what was in that, and here’s the demolition legend.  You notice that that’s actually what’s down in this area.  Actually, I think it’s on the other one. Let me just delete that.  We’ll go to the other page – the one that had multiple versions of the floor plan in the small project set.  So, here’s the demolition legend.  [1:17:22]

So, this is a worksheet, and again, if I right-click on it, I can go open the source view, and then in a tab – either the same tab as the previous worksheet or a new tab, depending on your preferences that you’ve set – we just have this information.  So, let’s talk a little bit about other ways you can use worksheets for this purpose.  [1:17:45]

So, this is obviously a text element.  This is a text element.  This is a text element.  What are these?  Is this a wall?  Well, you may say, “Oh, of course it’s a wall,” but what happens when I click on it?  You see how it’s selected a line?  Here’s another line. Here’s another line.  Here’s another line.  A little hard to see the highlighting. Let’s try it down here.  You can see that these are lines.  [1:18:08]

So, it looks like walls, and it’s intended to match the graphics of the walls, but they aren’t walls.  Why?  Because in a worksheet, we do not have the 3D elements available.  So, you cannot have a wall in a worksheet.  You can only have 2D elements, and objects which have a 2D representation in the worksheet – although they can carry 3D information for use with the eye dropper, that’s an exception to the rule that no 3D elements can be in a worksheet.  [1:18:50]

Now, how did these get set up?  Well, turns out that you can create a worksheet by either taking things from a plan or possibly an elevation or section, but most of the time, I’d do it from a plan, and you can create a new worksheet from whatever you’re looking at by putting in a worksheet marker that says, “Call us out.  Put it into a worksheet.  Copy the information,” but in the simple case like this, instead of drawing it on the plan and then copying it, I can just set this up in the worksheet and get the stuff that I want for this.  [1:19:37]

So, what I’ll do is I’ll go back to the plan, and so let’s just fit in window here.  I’ve got these things.  I’m just going to get rid of this stuff here, and let’s switch the view from plan status, where we see the final building to show all with overrides.  When I say to show all with overrides, I’ve switched the renovation filters – which I brought up by clicking the renovation filter icon in the Quick Options bar.  I’ve switched it to a different setting where it’s showing all types of elements – existing, demo, and new, and overriding the ones that are new.  [1:20:29]

So, the new ones have got this little aqua blue background.  The demo elements are shown with dashed lines and no fill here.  This is a setting that you can adjust, and you can have as many of these filters as you find useful, but let’s just see what happens with this.  That means that I can see – here’s a wall existing to remain.  Here’s a new wall that’s going to be added, and here’s a demo wall.  So, I’m going to go and pick up this wall type and just draw the piece. [1:21:02]

Actually, we’ll do just a single piece here, and then I’m going to drag a copy of this.  Let’s see. Drag this copy and then drag another copy.  By the way, I could have done this with a multiple command, but I’m going to go now and eye drop this one and inject it into here.  Nothing changed.  Let me eye drop this one and inject it into here.  Now, you may say, “Well, I’m not quite sure what you’re doing, Eric, because you said you were eye dropping this, but I’m not seeing a change.”  [1:21:48]

Well, that’s because the eye dropper and the transfer settings – one of the built-in limitations is that it will not change the renovation status of an element.  So, this allows you to very flexibly say, “Hey, I need to draw another one of these types of elements – this type of wall, and not have it change the settings.”  Maybe you’re drawing a bunch of new elements, or you’re drawing a bunch of elements that are going to be demoed.  It won’t modify that.  [1:22:20]

So, how do you modify it?  You open up the renovation palette here and select an element and tell it to be – I’ll just say that this one’s a demo.  You notice that it changed.  Select this one. I’m going to make it new.  Notice how it’s changed?  Now, the style is based on what renovation filter I’m in.  So, if I put plan status, then you can see these two look the same, and the third one – the demo – disappeared because this is what it will look like when the building is completed as to plan.  [1:22:57]

Let me put it back to the show all with overrides.  Now we can see these 3 here.  So, I’m going to go and select these in this mode, copy them, and guess what?  I’m going to go to this legend, and I’ll paste.  I’ll paste it in the center of the current view, and we’ll just move these over, and this is how you get something that you can create as a legend.  [1:23:30]

So, obviously, I can select this, drag it down here, get these lined up with the text that I might have done, so you can line it up with the text.  Depending upon what type of wall you wanted to do – this is an insulted wall.  That’s a non-insulated wall, etc., so in a worksheet, you can paste in information.  Now, remember.  This is now just 2D information, but it came from a 3D element, and so it carries all of the style that would match what you see on the sheet here.  [1:24:11]

Now, if I were to update this, guess what?  It’s going to now have a little extra stuff, but it’s not showing.  Why?  Because the frame is set to be a manual size.  If I say to fit the frame to the drawing, then it extends out there.  So, by the way, if you’re not familiar with framing, just a quick thing.  If you have a drawing, and you’ve placed it, you can go to an edge and move this in or out using the pet palette and crop it.  [1:24:49]

You can also go to a corner and, using the top section of the pet palette, you can change the cropping in or out here.  You can go to any corner, so you can go to 2 opposite corners and change that cropping in 2 steps as opposed to 4 edges – things like that, so that’s the basics of cropping.  So, if we just get back to the general concept, you can place anything you like onto a layout sheet – any annotation element like this, and you can also place views of working drawings like the floor plan or an elevation, and you can place worksheet views for various purposes, including use as a legend or for notes.  [1:25:38]

So, as a general summary, to the extent that you can place elements or information in one place and reuse it over and over again, it will save you time and reduce any errors or inconsistency. These notes here, in theory, could be seen in many places, and will always be up to date in every place that they’re seen, and if you take those things that we’re looking at, and you put them into your template, then you already have a framework for that. [1:26:15]

So, in the template, there are a bunch of worksheets.  So, if we look at ComDoc legends here, this is just a framework.  Perhaps if you wanted to put in a legend for finish floor plan or a legend for the reflected ceiling plan or the demolition plan, these are just some places.  Now, this looks like it’s got a whole bunch of information or that it would have a bunch.  When you place the worksheet onto a layout, you can crop it and say, “Well, on this particular sheet, I only want to see this area.”  So, you can crop it into that area, and for another sheet, you have this one.  [1:27:01]

So, you don’t have to have a separate worksheet for every set of notes.  This is a variation that is included in MasterTemplate as a demonstration, and you can certainly run with it, and of course, you can do it in your own projects as well.  So this is a framework for where you put notes, and then you would just place the cropped view on the reflected ceiling plan.  [1:27:28]

If we look at a demo legend – that’s the one we were just in.  If we look at typical notes and labels, this is a little different use, and I think I may have referred to it.  I’m not sure in the Interactive Legends.  In this case, what you’ll see is a whole bunch of labels, annotations for roof slopes, and other short sets of notes.  These are not intended to be placed onto a layout sheet.  You can see there’s just a whole lot of them, but you can eye drop them.  [1:28:09]

So, by having this open in a separate window, you can literally go eye drop here and then go to your elevation, and let’s just go to one of my elevations here, and having eye dropped that, I can go and say, “Here’s a note.”  Obviously, it doesn’t apply in that case, but I can go back and forth to the typical notes and eye drop this one and go to the elevation and – yeah, just whatever you can see.  The idea here, and you could have this seen in a virtual trace, so it was off to the side, if you didn’t want to go back and forth between the worksheet and the elevation.  [1:29:06]

So, that is a worksheet that is intended, in this case, for a lot of typical notes, and you can see that here is the instruction in MasterTemplate, just saying that you can use these if you wish, but it’s probably best if you just go to your own projects, grab your own notes that you use all the time, spend an hour, spend the chunk of time, and just bring them in and put them into this worksheet.  [1:29:31]

Then, you will be able to eye drop and place them in very, very quickly.  So, this is another use of the worksheets that I think you can find very powerful for drawing it once and then referencing it with the eye dropper.  Now, another thing that I’ve got here, which has a similar purpose, is the company logo.  So, this is the MasterTemplate logo.  Where do you see this?  [1:30:06]

Well, if I go to the layouts here, you’ll see that it’s in this upper right corner.  Now, all of the elements that are in the worksheet – I’m sorry, in the title block, are on Masters, and if I go down to – in the layout book, to the Masters, you’ll see that here it is.  Let’s just use the Arrow tool.  Here is the logo, and it’s turned.  Where do we see the turn 90°?  Here.  It’s turned 90°, and it’s set at a scale – I just resized it.  You can grab any drawing or graphic, and in addition to using the crop option, you can also just change the scale using this separate icon in the pet palette – the stretch, and so I can make it fit to whatever size it needs to be using that particular pet palette option.  [1:31:20]

What you’ll see is that if I go to each of these sheets – this is here.  If I go to smaller sheets or larger sheets – this is now a larger one, it’s set up, and even in some cases, we may have it on a letter size piece of paper, and it’s got a very tiny one.  Now, it’s not intended that you use the use the MasterTemplate logo.  It’s intended that you go in the worksheet here and replace it – to select this.  [1:31:52]

Now, what is this?  This is in a worksheet, and the element itself is a logo file that’s actually been embedded, but you can just replace it.  You can delete the element and replace it with your own, and then every place where this is referenced on our master – on a layout master, gets updated.  So, how would we do that?  I can delete this.  You notice that, for convenience, there are four hotspots that have been placed, so that if I place a logo – whether it’s text or a graphic or some combination, in this bounded area, then all of those masters will instantly work because they’re resized to fit into the title block.  [1:32:43]

Now, if you need to make it a different proportion, and it’s a square rather than rectangular, etc., you can still place this, and then you can move it around on the masters and get them set up, but if you do follow this proportion, then it’s going to automatically fit in without any work.  So, getting back to the general principle, do this once in a worksheet.  It will show up in all the masters, and it will show up on all the layouts.  Very quick change – one change, and you’ve got it done in your entire project, and if it’s in the template, in every project that you create from that point on.  [1:33:28]

Alright, so let’s look at some final questions before we finish up today.  Alright, Susan says, “So simple.”  Great.  Chris says, “It is available for the Mac.”  So, Frames Express.  I’ll have to check it out.  I have something that’s a very useful thing.  This is called Unclutter.  So, Unclutter – you notice this text I copied earlier is in the clipboard, and if I click here, these are other things that I copied previously, and it goes on and on.  [1:34:02]

So, this is – I don’t have a keyboard shortcut for it, but I can have multiple things that I’ve copied and refer back to them.  It’s very, very powerful, and there are some other things.  This is actually – I can have some quick notes that I have access to, and it’s opened by simply moving my mouse up to the top of the screen and rolling the mouse wheel, and I can, of course, make it disappear.  So, that’s called Unclutter, and I like it a lot.  [1:34:29]

OK, depending on how much you use Frames Express, it is free.  Well, great.  Alright, Bob says, “Signing out.”  Catch you later.  Gestur.  “I have sometimes had material on worksheets disappear.  Could there be a reason?”  Well, elements that you place on worksheets, in general, are on layers. Layers can be turned on or off. When you place a drawing onto a layout, that drawing is a view of some part of your project. If it’s a view of a worksheet, then it will have view settings. The view settings include what layers are turned on.  [1:35:07]

So, if you don’t control the view settings or the layer combination that’s active, then you may have things disappear from the worksheet, just because those layers are turned off.  Now, in general, in our working environment – let’s say, the plan – things can appear or disappear based on layers.  So, you turn off a layer that it’s on. It goes away. It can also appear or disappear based on renovation status.  So, if you put something as a new element, and then you switch your view to show me the existing, then it will disappear.  I don’t think that applies to worksheets, but it’s possible that it may.  [1:35:52]

There are model view options as well.  This will control how things are seen, and graphic overrides.  So, these are 4 different ways that we can control visibility or the style of elements, and so those would be the 4 things I would look at, in case of something on a worksheet disappearing.  Now, if it got deleted, occasionally, I’ve seen things happen where you’ve got something selected, you zoom over to somewhere else, you select something else, and you’re looking at it and say, “I’m going to delete that,” and you forget that you had something else selected off-screen.  [1:36:32]

So, occasionally, I’ve seen things get deleted just because I was deleting something in my working view and didn’t realize that when I used the Shift-click, that I had something else selected.  Alright, so maybe that will explain it.  So, I’m going to finish up today’s session, then.  I think we were able to cover that.  Let me just go to the notes here, and oh.  I didn’t put much down.  I think we did cover the standard notes for general specifications, drawing types – so this would be for a floor plan or for a site plan or ceiling plan.  [1:37:17]

You can use Word or Pages and bring in things via .pdf. This makes it easy to do multiple columns and handle multiple pages with text that will reflow automatically and renumber, and you can use the worksheets for notes and legends that you place, potentially on multiple layouts and then make it easy to just work in the worksheets to get those notes set up or the legends set up, and they show up on all of your sheets.  [1:37:47]

So, look forward to sharing the next lesson of the course.  I’m not quite sure where we’re going from here.  I think we’re going to be starting to get into the view map and project map distinction and looking at attribute definitions in the near future – not quite sure if those are what’s coming up for next week or not.  I will be reviewing the outline and figuring out what’s the next part that needs to be covered.  [1:38:22]

So, thank you for joining me today.  I’ll be back tomorrow with the ARCHICAD coaching program.  You’re most welcome to join that one. If you have specific questions about how to apply any of the teachings that I’ve got in the context of your projects, or in fact, if you have challenges working on your projects, send your projects in to support@bobrow.com.  You can send a link to a Dropbox file.  If it’s more than about 10 MB, you might find that a better way to do it, and send in your questions, and I’ll be happy to help you during a call.  [1:39:02]

So, this has been Eric Bobrow.  Thanks for watching.  [1:39:06]