2013-06-18

Dork Side Tips: Lay it all out


This tip from the dork side bears a little more explanation when it is standalone.

Working in a large facility inside the city limits, our construction is, by necessity, always butting up against another building. Obviously, once that happens, renovations often spill over from one building to another. So, also by necessity, our floor plates, and thereby our background plans, cover all of the buildings in a single file. 

I created a composite set for each discipline (ease of use for mechanics, engineers and future renovations for each trade):
Mechanical Ductwork
Mechanical Piping
Domestic Water
Electrical Power
Electrical Lighting
Electrical - Auxiliary Systems (nurse call, fire alarms, etc)
Fire Protection Piping

While I work on the Engineering staff, and we are not responsible for the architectural components, I have recently started two additional sets just for reference:
Architectural - Reflected Ceiling Plans
Architectural - Room Usage 

For each of these sets, I copy over the content from each renovation project's record documents.
All I started with was a set of floor plans, so I had to create each of the above-mentioned sets from scratch. Obviously, I created one, and used it as a template for the remainder (using the below tip, the Sheet Set Manager or SSM, and recently, Fields for the titleblocks).

Now for the tip:

After I set up separate layouts for each building on a given level, I want to import the layouts into the drawing for another level. Open up your next drawing and just right-click on a layout tab and select From Template…, change the Files of Type: selection to .dwg and select the drawing you just set up your layouts in. You will be able to select one or more of the layouts available in the drawing you are using as your template.

You can also import layouts into other drawings by using Design Center, although this will not bring along their Page Setups. Go to the Output tab of the ribbon and click the Page Setup Manager to import from there, if needed.

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