Week #21 – Creating and Customizing Library Parts
21-9. Custom Drawing Titles

ArchiCAD Training (Best Practices Lesson 21-9)

This 15 minute ArchiCAD training will teach you how to create your own custom drawing titles.

Each Drawing placed onto a Layout sheet has a setting available for selecting a Title, and in the standard library there are several styles available. These are configurable, and by changing the parameter settings you may achieve different results.

However, there is a limit to how much the built-in Titles are able to do, and sometimes it may be useful to create your own custom drawing title style. To do this, on any layout draw the lines and text to create a “mock-up” of your title, then select them and use the File menu > Libraries and Objects > Save Selection As… > Drawing Title command, then name and save the new Title.

To make the Title “intelligent” so that it picks up the Drawing ID, Drawing Name and Drawing Scale, edit the text and replace the placeholders with Autotext using the special “A” symbol with the two curly arrows. These will temporarily show the name or names of drawings currently on the sheet, but when associated with a Drawing as a Custom Title, they will correctly show the information associated with that Drawing.

These custom Titles are not going to automatically change the length of the line to match the drawing, as this requires special GDL scripting. To have a different length line for the Title, you will need to create a separate copy with a different version of the 2D elements; you can do this for as many variations as you need, for example to fit onto a Detail grid for multiple cells.

These Titles will be placed by ArchiCAD at the bottom of the actual Drawing, and may need to be moved manually using the Pet Palette into the desired location on the sheet.

So all in all, they will not be as “smart” or configurable as the scripted ones in the library, but if you want them to match a company standard, or have a particular style you want to achieve, it is possible to create your own pretty easily.

Thank you for visiting the Best Practices Course website. The video lessons are available for members only. If you are an active member and would like to watch the ArchiCAD training video on this page, please login to the website. If you are not currently a member, please visit the following pages for more information and to sign up for the Best Practices Course, the QuickStart Course or for the Best Practices ArchiCAD Coaching Program. Eric Bobrow, Creator of the Best Practices Course
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Eric

 

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