Discover how to effectively manage Revit files as part of VDCI's BIM 322 course. Learn the proper way to download, detach, and re-save central files on your local machine, and how to create and manage new local user copies.
Key Insights
- Initially, it is necessary to download the central file from the student information system and then open it up, detach it, and re-save it as a central file on the local machine. This is due to certain peculiarities within Revit's file management system.
- Once the central file has been re-saved, a new local user copy is created. This local copy will serve as the working file, synced to the central file for effective project management and collaboration.
- Revit automatically saves this new local file in the 'My Documents' folder, but it is recommended to move this file to the BIM 322 folder on the C drive for better organization and easier access for other individuals who may need to work on it.
Welcome back to CAD Teacher VDCI's video course content for the BIM 322 course. In the previous video, we talked about the files that you needed to download from the student information system, and then the folder structure on your C drive with a folder called BIM 322, then folders named BIM 322 Backgrounds, Central, and Details. And so what we're going to go ahead and do now is we're actually going to go ahead and start working on the project.
But what we need to go ahead and do first is we need to go and look at the central file. We need to go ahead and open up this central and detach it and then re-save it as a central file. When we move the central file or when you download it to your local computer, Revit kind of has some odd things that it goes through.
And so we need to re-save this as a central file on your local machine. So what I'd like you to go ahead and do is please, under your BIM 322 folder, go to the BIM 322-central. Go ahead, go to BIM 322-central here, and go ahead and select Detach from Central, please.
And go ahead and hit open. Go ahead and also select Detach and Preserve Worksets. And what we have now is we have the model file or the central file has now been detached.
And what we want to go ahead and do now is we want to re-save this as a new central file. So what I want to go ahead and do is I'm going to go ahead and go up to the application button here. I'm going to pull this down and I'm going to go Save As > Project.
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It's going to take me back to the BIM 322-central or just navigate to that location. And what I'm going to do now is I'm going to select that BIM 322-central to get the file name here. I'm also going to go into options, and I'm going to make sure that the Make this a Central Model after save is checkmarked here.
I'm going to hit okay. I'm going to go ahead and hit save, and it's going to save the file. This is going to come up.
If you have a backup version, just go ahead and hit Yes. So it saves that as a new central file, and we do not want to work in this file. This is the central file.
We need to create a new local user copy that we will use to work in that will actually be synchronized to this central file. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go ahead and close this down in the top right corner here. And what I'm going to do now is I'm going to go back to open, and I'm going to select that file I just created with that save.
But instead of detach from central this time, I'm going to select Create New Local. I'm going to go ahead and hit open, and it's going to create a new local file for us. Now, the issue with this new local file is that when Revit creates a new local file, it automatically saves in our Documents folder, and that's not really where we want to save anything.
So what I want to go ahead and do is let's go ahead and click save up here, and we're going to go ahead and move this to our BIM 322 folder. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to close it again. Go ahead and just synchronize with the central.
That's fine. Hit OK. And what I'm going to do now is I'm going to go down to my start button, and I'm going to go to My Documents.
If you need to go ahead and use your own way to get to your My Documents, if you have a faster way of doing it, I'm going to go to My Documents here. And as you can see, that BIM 322 central is saved here. This is not where we want to save it.
We want to save it on a server location. If people need to access it, they can. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to select this file, do a right-click, and select Cut.
I'm going to go back over to my C drive, go to my BIM 322 folder, and I'm going to go ahead and paste it here. So all I'm going to do is I'm going to do a right-click, paste. And we've now put that folder, or that file, excuse me, in our BIM 322 folder.
I want to go ahead and rename it real quickly so that we do not have any confusion that this is the central. I'm going to select it, right-click, Rename, and I'm going to rename it YourName-Local and click off to lock in that name. What I'm going to do now is I'm going to close my Windows Explorer here, and I'm going to go ahead and click Open.
I'm going to go up a level to my BIM 322 folder, go to the local file I just created, and hit Open. And this is where we're going to go ahead and start. So I'm going to go ahead and stop this video here, and in the next videos we're going to go ahead and actually get started with modeling.
See you then.
