Underline Revit Schedule Headings

I was recently asked if it is possible to just underline the Revit schedule column titles without having all the lines/boxes below.  At first I thought it was not possible, so I figured out a crazy workaround.  As I was checking the workflow for documenting it on this blog I discovered something I didn't know (or at least had forgotten but once knew), which made the solution quite easy.  I have always found that preparing conference presentations is a great way of learning a subject thoroughly - instead of thinking that you know it all.  It seems that writing a blog has the same benefit.

I decided to document the workaround here anyway because someone might learn something in the process, or be able to use it for some other purpose.  If you just want to know the best solution, skip to 'The Correct Workflow'

Underline Workaround Method

When you first place a schedule on a sheet, you get some pretty uninspiring looking graphics - all boxed in, with the heading text centre justified and the body text left justified.

Default schedule appearance

If you look at the schedule 'Appearance' properties, the default settings show Grid lines on, Outlines off.  Depending on your project template, you may have the same text type for all three aspects of the schedule text - in which case it is wise to create separate text types for title, header and body text, making sure they are named clearly.

Default schedule appearance settings

 You could try turning on the Outline and hiding the gridlines to see if it underlines the title/header.

Outline on, gridlines off

Unfortunately it does not underline either the title or headers - those settings are very crude, giving us very little control at all.  The end result is a box around the whole schedule.

Outline on, gridlines off

The next thing to try is to switch off the outline box, then underline the header text itself.  You could select the header text in the schedule view, and change its font properties

Selected text font properties

However, it is much better practise to use a specific text type for the header and edit the type properties for it - so you can change them all at once without having to select the text in the schedule cells.

Text type properties

The end result is that individual header text words are underlined, which looks awful - we are trying to get one single line under the whole lot.

Header text underlined

How about using the schedule formatting tools introduced in Revit 2014?

• First edit the Schedule Header text type to remove the underline.
• Then highlight all the header cells by dragging the cursor across them - this has to be done in Schedule edit mode, not in sheet view.

Select all the header text cells

•  Click on the Borders icon on the ribbon.

• This opens the Edit Borders dialog box

• Select the linestyle you want the underline to be
• Click on the border box to the lower left with cells underlined

• Click OK
• Assuming that you switched off the 'Gridlines' and 'Outline' checkboxes, you still won't see the borders on the header cells (or any borders at all).
• Enable the 'Gridlines' checkbox, and you get all the gridlines back again (not just the header underline borders.
• This was the point at which a gap in my knowledge caught me out, so I devised the crazy workaround.  I thought that you could not control the borders on individual cells in the body of the schedule because the Borders icon was greyed out as soon as you select one or more cells - more on that later.

Crazy Workaround

Don't follow these steps!

• First I created a white coloured linestyle

• Then set the linestyle for 'Gridlines' to be the white linestyle
• For this to work it requires the 'Blank row before data' checkbox to be ticked

White line gridlines plus blank row before data

• Hey presto - the gridlines are there, but you can't see them as they are white on a white screen (of course it won't work if you changed your background colour).
• The header cells should be underlined because those cells had a black border

The Correct Workflow

This is how you should do it - so much simpler:

• Set the gridlines linestyle back to something sensible like 'Thin Lines', making sure that 'Gridlines' is ticked
• What I didn't realise earlier is that you can modify the border lines on all the cells by selecting the columns at the top of the schedule, by clicking on the letters at the top - just like Excel.  Duh!
• Select all the columns by running the cursor along the row of letters

Select all columns

•  Click on the Borders icon on the ribbon

• Click on the 'None' icon

None borders on all cells

•  Select the Title cell and set its cell borders to None
• Select just the header cells

Select all the header text cells

• Click on the Borders icon on the ribbon
•  Select the linestyle you want the underline to be
• Click on the border box to the lower left with cells underlined

Underline border

• Make sure that 'Blank row before data' is ticked otherwise the Header cell underline borders will not show - this is the useful tip I discovered in my crazy workaround that also applies to this method

Grid in headers/footers/spacers

• Also untick the 'Grid in headers/footers/spacers' checkbox otherwise you'll get vertical gridlines in the blank row (as above)

Appearance formatting

• Select each column and change its horizontal alignment as you require

Align columns

• Finally you should get the desired result

Underlined headers

• If you want to have some fun you can shade alternate columns.  I don't believe there is a way to shade alternate rows, which is something people do in Excel occasionally.

Alternate columns shaded

The moral of this tale is that we now have two different ways of controlling the gridlines on Revit schedules - they do not work well together.  Basically you can opt not use the old controls unless you want very simple formatting that happens to match the old options (All gridlines or just an outline box).  If you want to use the new border tools then you need to make sure the old gridline checkboxes are set to the default settings (as shown above).

True 3D RCP View of a Stair in Revit

I was asked recently if there could be a way to show a true reflected ceiling plan (RCP) of a stair in Revit.  If you set up a conventional RCP view in Revit, it will display the underside of a stair above as if it has a smooth sloping soffit regardless of the construction.  A steel of timber stair will look just like a monolithic stair above - it shows the outline of each run and landing plus any supports, but no back of riser lines.  It makes no difference changing the view discipline to 'Structural'.

You can check which subcategories it is displaying by changing the view overrides:
<Above> Outlines   and   <Above>Supports

 

For more info, refer to Stair Subcategory Visibility

For a metal or timber stair, you would expect to see the undersides of the risers;  a precast stair might be the same.

Workaround

There is a way to achieve this, but of course it is a workaround that has several downsides.  What you need to do is create a plan callout of the stair, but it must be made as a detail view.  For more information on the downsides, refer to Detail Plan Callout Views.

When you create a callout from a floor plan view, you have a choice of making it a detail or a floor plan view. 

These behave very differently and are not interchangeable, so you need to choose the right one from the start.  Normally I would strongly advise to never use a Detail Plan View callout, but this is one exception to that advice - so go ahead and create a Detail Plan view.

 When you go to the callout view, it shows a true 3D representation of the stair, without any cutlines or representations of what is above.  It also cannot host a stair path arrow (amongst other things).

Detail View plan callout of a stair

This callout view can be converted to a reflected ceiling plan view by following a few steps:

• Select the callout and change its properties:
• Show In = Intersecting Views

 

• Parent View = <none>

 

• Far Clipping = Clip without Line
• Far Clip Offset = a suitable view range distance to see the whole stair

• Go to a section view that cuts through the plan callout
• You should see the callout as a horizontal section line (if not, check its extents to see it is withing the section extents) - select it

• Click on the 'Flip Section' double arrow symbol - it should now be looking upwards

• Go to the callout view, and it should be a reflected ceiling plan

RCP Detail callout view

The subcategory display of this will be quite different from a normal RCP view - refer to Showing Concrete Stairs under tread finishes

The riser lines will be controlled by the 'Treads/Risers' subcategory.  The Nosing Lines and Riser Lines subcategories will not affect this kind of view.

I would only recommend using this workaround for detailed RCP views of stairs.  I would not use it on an overall RCP of the whole floor - I would accept the fact that undersides of risers will not display on the overall.

 Stairs index page

Weird Stair Stuff - part 5 - Top Riser Line Missing

Following on from my post about Revit Stair Subcategory Visibility, I noticed another strange anomaly with stairs in plan.
If you have a stair that ends with a riser and has projecting nosings, the very top riser line of your stair will not display in plan.

Run type properties for tread and riser

Run instance properties

Top tread / riser in section

Instead of showing the top riser and nosing lines, Revit will display an 'Outline' line - this represents the actual top nosing line, or where it would be if your run ended in a tread.

End With Tread

If your stair run does actually need to end with a tread, then the subcategory visibility graphics presents you with a different problem:

Run ends with a tread

It displays correctly in section but then you have a top tread that may or may not be the same material as the floor finish - and you get a joint line between the floor and the top tread.  If they are the same material you probably don't want to see the joint line;  if they are different materials you may want to see the joint at detailed views but not in general arrangement views. 

Run ends with a tread

It cannot be controlled by subcategory because you would lose all the outlines (including sides of stair) if you turn off the 'Outlines' subcategory.  So you would need to resort to the 'Linework' tool to hide the line.

The factory has at least corrected the problem of where the stair path arrow ends - on the top riser/nosing line.  With the old stairs it used to include the top tread, which ws totally confusing.


Go to Revit Stair & Railings Index Page