Tiny Tools – duplicate, rename and align sheets and views in Revit

Duplicate, rename and align views on sheets automatically in Revit

Tiny Tools is finally out! ‘Tiny Tools’ is the name of a small collection of plugins that allow you to duplicate, rename, and align sheets and views Revit. You can download it from the official Autodesk App Store.

The process of publishing new Plugin content on the Autodesk App Store can sometimes be slow and tedious, but those guys do go through the trouble of testing your work and making sure it doesn’t break on the first try, so I see that as a positive feature. Thank you, Sripathi Acharya, for your support and kind service.

So, what are Tiny Tools and why does the world need yet another set of plugins arranged into a Ribbon? After publishing Revit add-ins for 4 years now, I’ve started approaching the task of publishing new content with the responsibility it deserves and with higher sensitivity to the immediate benefits of our tools. The truth is that writing a useful yet specific script is straightforward enough. 10% of the job, probably a lot less. What’s difficult is formulating a general case that will satisfy the needs of a large-enough user group. And creating a robust, bug-free plugin with a clean UI is the most time-consuming part of the equation.

What we did this time around is work together with a bunch of our clients to create a small yet powerful set of tools. A toolset that caters to the staple yet annoying tasks that every draftsperson encounter daily. Work smarter, not harder – preach. A BIG THANKS to BIG (no pun intended), MA, ABA, and many others for providing invaluable input and feedback throughout the process!

We created five simple plugins. Each of them can be used in isolation, but you can string them together to create some neat workflows! Let’s check them one by one.

Duplicate Views

There are many ways to achieve the same goal – Dynamo is one such way, and so is writing a bespoke macro. Our tool makes the task of duplicating multiple views smooth. Select your views in the project browser and execute the command – using the native way of selecting views is what makes this workflow glow! The algorithm will automatically change the view titles to make renaming equally effortless. Speaking of renaming here is our next tiny tool.

Bulk Rename

‘Bulk Rename’ is dedicated to making the task of renaming large selections of your views or sheets an enjoyable experience. Using this command will present you with a simple user interface that allows you to do the following manipulations to your views or sheets. You can replace parts of the string (in programming string stands for words, which is to say text), or append chunks to the start or end of it. You will be able to observe the final results of your manipulations in real-time.

Sheets from Views

Let’s say you’ve just created a list of gorgeous floor plans. You now have to go through the process of creating an equal amount of Sheets to drag said Views onto and align them. Sheets from Views lets you do all that in a click of a button. The Views will be placed in the same place across all sheets which saves you an additional step. (However, if you do have to align multiple views in your existing project, check Align Views further below).

Duplicate Sheets

Similar to Duplicating Views, only for Sheets and so much power! This little friend will duplicate the views as well leaving you with an exact copy of your sheet(s). Adopting this procedure will save you gazillion clicks and keep you in a good mood for a whole afternoon. What’s more, you can sure use ‘Bulk Rename’ and finish the setup of a new drawing package in no time at all.

Align Views

Aligning views, or more correctly viewports, that need to stack is an important feature that makes the product of your labor – your drawings, look professionally. Describing the traditional process of handling this task in vanilla Revit is equally boring as the process itself, so I won’t even try to do that here. Suffice to say, our plugin makes an easy job out of it, just give it a spin or check out the video below.

In conclusion – we have created a small set of handy tools that let you duplicate, rename, and align sheets and views Revit. We hope you like our work and find great use of this tool-set which we have created with love and dedication. We would be delighted to hear your thoughts and comments! You can contact us directly, post on the official webpage of the plugin, or leave a comment below. Don’t forget that you can hire our team to create bespoke Revit add-ins or help you in your computational journey.