Sheets, schedules and printing

This chapter describes how the project is documented: sheets and their title blocks, the views placed on them, revisions, schedules, printed drawings and exported images.

Sheets

A sheet is a drawing to print: a title block and the views placed on it. Sheets are listed under Sheets (all) in the Project Browser, by number.

Creating a sheet

View ➤ Sheet Composition ➤ Sheet opens New Sheet: choose a title block (its paper size is shown), None, or one of the placeholder sheets of the sheet list. OK creates the sheet with the next free number (A101, A102…) and opens it.

Right-click a sheet in the Project Browser ➤ Rename… to change its number and name in Sheet Title. The other parameters of the sheet are in the Properties palette: Sheet Number, Sheet Name, Sheet Issue Date, Drawn By, Checked By, Designed By, Approved By, Appears In Sheet List, its guide grid and its revisions. Several sheets picked together in the Project Browser (with Ctrl or Shift) are changed together: the palette shows the values they share.

Manage ➤ Settings ➤ Project information sets what every sheet shows: Project Issue Date, Project Status, Client Name, Project Address, Project Name and Project Number.

View ➤ Create ➤ Schedules ➤ Note Block makes a schedule of the symbols placed with Symbol, of one family only (north arrows, targets, revision deltas…): in New Note Block choose the Family and type the Note Block Name, then OK. Note Block Properties opens first, with the same tabs as any schedule; by default each row shows the symbol's type, its text and the count.

Title blocks

The title block shows the project's information, the sheet's number and name, the people and the dates, the current revision and the scale (As indicated when the views have different scales); above it, a table lists the sheet's revisions with their number, description and date. A double click on one of its fields types the value in place.

• Click a line of the title block to pick it: the type selector changes it to another paper size, Del removes it (the sheet and its views stay).
• View ➤ Sheet Composition ➤ Title Block inserts one on the open sheet: choose it in the type selector, its frame follows the cursor, click to place it.
• Edit Type shows its Sheet width and Sheet height; Duplicate… makes a new paper size.

Views on sheets

Drag a view from the Project Browser onto the sheet, or use View ➤ Sheet Composition ➤ View (Views, then Add View to Sheet): the view follows the cursor at its scale, and a click places it as a viewport. A view goes on one sheet only; a schedule on several.

A picked viewport:

• moves with the mouse or the arrow keys, unless it is pinned (Pin); near another view, its title lines up with the other's and a dashed line shows it;
• has its View Scale, its Title on Sheet (also typed by double-clicking the title) and its Rotation on Sheet (90° clockwise or counter-clockwise; the title stays horizontal);
• shows the end of its title line, which can be dragged;
• takes a viewport type from the type selector: No Title, Title w/ Line or Title w/o Line, or a type of your own (Show Title, Show Extension Line, line weight, colour and pattern of the line);
• leaves the sheet with Del; the view stays in the project.

Activate View (on the Modify | Viewports tab or the right button) edits the view where it is on the sheet, the rest of the sheet in halftone; Deactivate View goes back to the sheet. A view turned on its sheet cannot be activated: take its rotation off first. A double click on a view opens it in its own window.

Guide grids

View ➤ Sheet Composition ➤ Guide Grid asks for a name and covers the sheet with a grid. Pick it to drag its corners or to set its Guide spacing; the sheet's Guide Grid parameter shows the same grid on other sheets, or none. Views dragged near the grid's lines snap onto them. The grid is never printed.

Sheet list

View ➤ Create ➤ Schedules ➤ Sheet List makes a schedule of the sheets: number, name and any other field. Sheets with Appears In Sheet List unticked are left out. Rows ➤ New adds a placeholder sheet: a row that is not a sheet yet and is not in the Project Browser. Filter placeholder sheets shows every row, hides the placeholders or shows only them. A placeholder chosen in New Sheet becomes a real sheet.

Revisions

View ➤ Sheet Composition ➤ Sheet Issues/Revisions lists the revisions of the project, one per row: Sequence, Numbering (Numeric, Alphabetic or none), Date, Description, Issued, Issued to, Issued by and Show. Add adds one; a row picked by its sequence number is merged into the one above or below (its clouds go with it) or moved up and down. Numbering is Per Project or Per Sheet (the place of the revision among the sheet's revisions); Alphabetical order ➤ Options… sets the letters used. An issued revision cannot be changed, and neither can its clouds, until Issued is unticked.

Annotate ➤ Detail ➤ Revision Cloud draws a cloud in a plan, a section, a drafting view or on a sheet: sketch closed loops with the shapes of the Draw panel, then Finish Edit Mode; a selected cloud's Edit Sketch opens them again, unless its revision is issued. The cloud takes the latest revision not issued; picked, it shows its Revision (to change), its number, date and people, its Mark and Comments. Show of a revision draws its clouds and tags, keeps them but does not draw them, or hides them.

A sheet lists the revisions of the clouds of its views and of its own clouds. Its Revisions on Sheet (in the Properties palette, Edit…) adds other revisions to the list.

Schedules

A schedule is a table of the elements of the model, and a view like the others: it opens in a window of the drawing area, is tiled, cascaded and switched with plans, sections and 3D views, and is listed under Schedules/Quantities in the Project Browser. It follows every change of the model at once, and every change made in it changes the model.

Creating a schedule

View ➤ Create ➤ Schedules ➤ Schedule/Quantities opens New Schedule: choose a category, a name (the default follows the category until one is typed) and Schedule building components or Schedule keys. OK opens Schedule Properties; its second OK creates the schedule and opens its view. Material Takeoff in the same menu lists the materials of the layers of walls, floors and roofs.

Schedule Properties

The dialog opens again from the Properties palette of the schedule (each tab has its Edit… button) or from the right button on the schedule in the Project Browser. Its tabs:

Working in a schedule view

• A cell edits the element, or its type for a type parameter; every edit is one step of undo.
• A row selects its elements in every view. Highlight in model on the Modify | Schedule/Quantities tab opens Show Elements in View, which brings a plan forward framed on them; Show goes on to the next view.
• Rows ➤ Delete deletes the elements of the selected rows, after asking.
• Headings picked together are joined under a common heading with Group, and parted with Ungroup; Hide column and Unhide all columns work on the column picked.

Schedules on sheets

Drag a schedule from the Project Browser onto a sheet. Selected on the sheet, it shows its controls: the Z on the right edge of a segment splits it in two, the arrow in the middle of a segment moves it (dropped on the segment beside it, the two join), the dot at the bottom of a segment moves its last row, and the triangles at the top of the columns set their widths. A double click, or Edit Schedule on the right button, opens the schedule view. The same schedule can go on several sheets.

Key schedules and material takeoffs

A key schedule (Schedule keys in New Schedule) defines named sets of values, one row per key, added and deleted with Rows. Its Key Name becomes a parameter of the category: choosing a key for an element gives it all the values of that row.

A material takeoff lists, for each element, the materials of its layers with their area and volume; its fields can be sorted, grouped and totalled like any other.

Project and shared parameters

Manage ➤ Settings ➤ Project Parameters adds parameters to the elements of some categories, or to their types, with a name, a type of value and the group they show in the Properties palette.

Manage ➤ Settings ➤ Shared Parameters opens Edit Shared Parameters: the shared parameter file in use (Browse…, Create…), its groups and the parameters of each group. A shared parameter keeps its name and type, and has an identifier of its own, so that several projects add the same parameter. In Parameter Properties, choose Shared parameter and Select… to add one to the project; Export… writes a shared parameter of the project back to the file.

Exporting and reusing schedules

• Application menu ➤ Export ➤ Reports ➤ Schedule… writes the schedule as delimited text: Export Schedule sets the field delimiter, the text qualifier and which headings and group rows go in the file.
• Create view template from view… on the right button of a schedule makes a view template with its fields, filter, sorting, formatting and appearance; Apply view template… gives them to another schedule.
• Save to New File… on the right button writes the schedule's setup, without the elements, to a file of its own. Insert ➤ Import ➤ Insert from File ➤ Insert Views from File… brings the schedules of another project into this one, with their project parameters.

Printing

Printing writes PDF files: on the desktop they are saved where you choose, in the browser they are downloaded.

The Print dialog

Ctrl+P, or application menu ➤ Print ➤ Print…, opens Print:

• File: the name of the file and, when several views or sheets are printed, Combine multiple selected views/sheets into a single file (one page each) or Create separate files (one file each, named after the sheet or view).
• Print Range: Current window, Visible portion of current window (only what the window shows), or Selected views/sheets with Select….
• Reverse print order prints the last page first.
• Settings: the print settings in use, changed with Settings…; Preview shows the pages.

Plans, sections, elevations, drafting views and sheets print as drawings; the 3D window prints as an image of the view; a schedule prints its table on a page. The page is always white, elements hidden temporarily in a window are printed, and each printed sheet carries the date and time of the print.

View/sheet sets

Select… opens View/Sheet Set: tick the sheets and views to print (Show sheets, views or both; Check all, Check none). A set is saved by name with Save As… and kept in the project; Save, Reset, Rename… and Delete manage the saved sets, and the name list picks one again.

Print Setup

application menu ➤ Print ➤ Print Setup…, or Settings… in Print, sets:

Settings are saved by name with Save As…, and kept in the project. Closing the dialog after changing saved settings asks whether to save the changes; No keeps them for this session only.

Print Preview

application menu ➤ Print ➤ Print Preview, or Preview in Print, shows the pages as they will print, in their colours: Previous Page and Next Page go through them, the wheel zooms and dragging pans; Print… prints, Close goes back.

Exporting images

application menu ➤ Export ➤ Images and animations ➤ Image… opens Export Image:

• the file name and the Export Range: the current window, its visible portion, or the views and sheets chosen (one file each);
• the Image Size: Fit view(s)/sheet(s) to a number of pixels across or down, or a zoom percentage of the real size at a resolution;
• the options, as for printing: view links in blue, crop boundaries and unreferenced view tags hidden;
• the Format of views without shading and of shaded views: PNG, JPEG, BMP or TIFF.

The 3D window is exported as it is shown, with its visual style.