Revit 2017 Installing a Keynote file

By James Philip

To prepare your Revit project to use the built-in Keynote tool, you will need to associate a keynote file with your Revit file.

First you must have a text file prepared for use with the necessary data. Autodesk provides two default text files that we can use for this example.

The default files are typically located in this or a similar location: C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\RVT 2017\Libraries\UK. We will use the attached file named

“C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\RVT 2017\Libraries\UK\UK_NBS_Uniclass2_2012.txt” for our initial example (This file can be found using the following link http://constructioncode.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/nbs-keynote-files.html ).

Next, we will tell Revit which text file to use with this particular project. In the Annotation tab of the ribbon, click the Keynote flyout to access the Keynote Settings button, as shown in Fig 1:

  Fig 1

 Click the Browse button and navigate to the text file that has been prepared for use with the keynotes for this file.

In this example, we will use the default file specified above. This keynote text file can be reloaded or changed to a different file at any time by returning to this dialog box.

You can also locate your text file in the project folder for each project, according to your company standards. Each Revit file can only use one text file for keynotes, but multiple Revit files can each use a different text file, or they can share the same text file.

For example: if you divide a project into three Revit files corresponding to three disciplines, the three Revit files can each use a different text file or they can all reference the same text file.

Your file should now be setup and ready to use keynotes. Shown in Fig 2:

Fig 2

Once installed, you can select the keynote, pick the object and place the keynote as shown below in Fig 3:

Fig 3