Today's post will show how a Revit family, located in a linked Revit model, can be easily copied into your current project... without needing to open the linked model.
Inspiration for posts on this blog often come from daily tasks and questions from colleagues. This is one of those posts... On an unrelated note, I grabbed a model on my desktop for this post (to use as the linked model). It is the massing model and adjacent existing building I created during a lecture to my graduate architecture students, at NDSU, two weeks ago.
Selecting the Linked Model
When anything in a link is selected in Revit, the entire link is selected. In the image below, I clicked on the desk, but the entire link was selected. You can tell, as the properties list the linked model name.
Selecting the Linked Family
To select the family, which is located in the linked Revit model, hover your cursor over it and tap the Tab key, and then select it - once it is highlighted. Notice, the parameters for the selected family are showing in properties. In properties, the values are all grayed out, and read-only, since the element is in a link... they cannot be modified here. However, just having access to this information can be helpful... to see product & rendering material info, ceiling height (e.g. light fixtures) or other values.
Copy Selected Linked Family into Current Project
To copy a selected family, located in a linked Revit model, simply copy it to the clipboard using Ctrl + C. Then, paste it, using Ctrl + V.
Copy the Family into the Same Place
We won't get into when/why this might need to be done, or the potential problems... but, to paste the copied family into the same place, use the Paste - Aligned to Same View command.
Result
The result is a copy of the family is now in your project. This includes any custom/shared parameters, Revit materials, etc. Somewhat untreated, I created a tooltip for the custom parameter I added to the family before copying it through the link.
Have any similar tips to share... add them to the comments below!
(somewhat) Related post:
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