Create a roof plan keynotes file with the right size and shape by using the floor plan keynotes as a base. Discover how to incorporate Excel files as texts and how to navigate and manipulate AutoCAD tables in this concise guide.
Key Insights
- Crafting a roof plan keynotes file is made simple by using the floor plan keynotes as a starting point. This ensures that the correct size and shape are maintained.
- Excel files can be effectively utilized in the creation of roof plan keynotes. In the case where an Excel file is used instead of a txt file, a different workflow is required which involves copying and pasting the Excel file and using the paste special feature to insert text.
- AutoCAD tables offer a unique texture to your roof plan keynotes but require delicate handling. This includes adjusting the justification, changing the individual color of each character, and managing the cell sizes to fit your keynote symbols. Remember to disable the table borders to ensure a clean final output.
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Let's create our roof plan keynotes file. In this case, we're going to use the floor plan keynotes as our base because we already have the right size and shape that we want to use again. So I'm going to go File, Save As, and I'm going to replace the word floor plan with roof plan, roof-plan-keynotes, Save.
I'm going to delete this text and I'm going to delete the keynotes, but I'm going to keep the a no-plot geometry and I'm going to go to the top and replace floor plan keynotes with roof plan keynotes, roof-plan-keynotes. If you check the File Downloads folder, you'll see that we don't have a txt file. Instead, we have an Excel file.
Excel is installed on most computers or you could open this file in Google Sheets or another online application. But if you can't follow along with the steps for the roof plan keynotes or the elevation keynotes files, please build these two files using the same steps we use for the floor plan keynotes. When I take a look at my roof plan keynotes file, I can see that instead of being a txt file, it is an Excel file.
But the text looks fairly similar. We will see the elevation keynotes file appear a little different. The key is I want to show the difference between when you copy and paste an Excel file versus text.
I'm going to select these cells and hit copy, CTRL C to copy, and in AutoCAD, I'm going to hit CTRL V to paste. This generates an OEM preview of our Excel file, and this is not helpful when working in AutoCAD. Instead, we need to use a different workflow.
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In edit, we see paste, but there's also paste special and we want to use paste special. First things first, if I scroll down, we can see that we can create text. We want to paste text.
Okay. This will override the image processing that is coming from Excel and paste this in as text. This is a successful solution to bringing Excel files in as text if you ever need to do that workflow.
In this case, I want to paste special as something else. Edit, paste special, and please follow along. I want to use AutoCAD entities.
I'll hit OK, and this will create a table, an AutoCAD table, using the cell data from my Excel. AutoCAD tables are a little bit more finicky than Excel, and let's explore what that looks like. If I jump into this cell, it starts the cell editor, then if I double-click, the text editor.
First things first, I want to change this to by block for my text, and you can see that it gives me all these text options. It brought in a new style. I want to change this back to text 01.
When I click to the side, we can see text 01, and now when I click the cell, not the text editor, I can change my justification to top left. There we go. When I want to match the properties down to the other cells, I can use match cell.
I'll click this once. It'll create crosshairs with the match paintbrush, and I can click down all of these cells. I want to point out the difference of what it changed and what it didn't change.
It changed cell options, which included the AutoCAD text style, which is now text 01, and the justification, but it was unable to change the individual color of each character. We need to go through and select the text in each of these. Control A to select it all and change it to by block.
I apologize in advance, this is quite tedious working with AutoCAD tables. We'll look at a slightly better way in a second. Again, select all and change to by block.
Now I'm going to select the table. When I select the cell, you can see I can pick the grip and slide each cell up to make it a little bit shorter. There we go.
Each of these cells have the correct text, and I can scale the size of this table left and right using my width scaling. In this case, I want to add my keynotes directly next to the cells. I'm going to select the top, go up, and insert a column to the left.
In this column, I'm going to place all of my keynote symbols. Before we place the symbols, let's bring this table over and align it to our bounds. I'm going to go move, enter, this top corner of the table to here, this endpoint.
Once again, I'm going to move this whole table down 1 eighth of an inch, move, enter, down 1 over 8, enter. This first column needs to be shortened to the width of our keynote column, and this second column needs to be shortened to that offset line 1 eighth inch in. Now I can go ahead and start placing my keynotes.
When I click into this cell, I can right click, and I can use the insert option to insert a block. This will give us a block selection option that lets me pick from any block in the drawing. Mine went straight to keynote, and I believe yours should as well.
In this case, the number one option we want to turn off is auto fit. If auto fit is on, it will scale the block to fill the cell. This is excellent when making a symbols legend or a fixtures legend for your floor plan, but in this case we want the keynote to appear at its real size.
I'm going to uncheck auto fit, and I'm going to change the positioning to the top center. I'll hit OK, and it will bring in the keynote. I'll go 1, OK, in the top center of that cell.
I can scale this cell shorter again, but it won't go shorter than the size of the keynote. I can click into each of these cells, right click, insert, block. This will carry over most of the same settings, but make sure you change your alignment to top center each time.
OK, 2, OK, and now in this block, insert, block, change to top center, OK. 3, and go ahead and fill in all of these blocks, right clicking, insert, bringing in your block, and of course make sure that your alignment is to top center. This is 5, and here we have 6. There we go.
I'll change one more thing. I'm going to make this cell a little bit shorter. And now we have created a keynote file using an AutoCAD table.
The last thing I want to do is select the whole table, picking all of my cells with a shift clip, and I'm going to use edit borders. This will let me turn off all of the borders for all of my cells by clicking this button here, the blank borders button. I'll hit OK, escape, escape, escape, zoom extents, control S to save.
Now when we bring this drawing into our A301 sheet file, we will not see any table borders, and we will only see roof plane keynotes, this horizontal line, and these objects. If you take a look at A303, we actually need one more horizontal line across the top because this keynote file is going in the center of the sheet. So I'm going to go line, endpoints to endpoints, enter to say I'm done, zoom extents, control S to save.
Let's jump into CAD301, A301, attach, and bring in my roof plane keynotes, DWG. I'm going to specify on screen, and this is going to go at the midpoint of this line here, and let's click by attached, Xref, and migrate it to the ATTLB layer. While I'm here, let's turn off my no plot for the keynotes file, zoom extents, control S to save.
Quickly, let's preview what this looks like when it prints, and we can see that none of the table lines are going to print. Zoom extents, control S to save. In the next video, we will place the keynotes on our elevation.
