mkennedy2000

I like the idea of a narrative, describing the changes and including an index or revisions and the sheets they are on. "R1 addresses city comments dated mm/dd/yy. Then a list of locations where the Delta symbol was inserted and an explanation of the revision .

What's the benefit of the schedule being in a detail rather than plan?

Yeah, I already updated, thanks. I'm on so rarely, and TBH, its never been an issue before, but I can see as the person originating a thread the version would be relevant. In the light of this new knowledge - any thoughts?

Ahh, I should take the version out of my signature, or try to remember to edit my signature. I've got x13.

I havent thought this through, at all, but.... I think I might like the ide of a revision schedule. I could create a note type that would have its symbol driven by that schedule. I'll look into custom schedules as a starting point - can I create and save multiple custom schedules in my pfrofie plans? Will this be a better tool than the layout revision tool? Any thoughts, directions, comments or experience would be welcome.....

Layout is sort of a CA term for sheet. AutoCAD used to call it model space and paper space. Tha additiob of paper space or a layout view is a huge step forward in the production of documents so i certainly dont want to go backwards. Do you distribute layout files to anyone? It seems to be the layout file is an intermediate step on the way to a PDF. I do sometimes distribute a paper plan butin general I both use and distribute a PDF. Its very easy these days to open a PDF and make a few notes or hyperlink a photograph. It would be sort of nice if, after a field visit where I had annotated the PDF of a version of the plan, those notes were there in CA. I could carry a laptop. Ive tried a 17in touch, too bulky and i have a little surface pro much better but.....windows sucks battery life, is slow to boot, i dont lile the stylus and windows ink nearly as much as my samsung note and galaxy tab which can share s pens and do a coupke of nice tricks. Like create a note without booting up the tablet or phone.

This is great information. It's not totally automatic, but since I have to manually insert a layout revision, and cloud and label revisions manually, this is easily up to par with the rest of the tool kit AND offers a solution for smart detail labels. I've often thought (aimlessly and with no actions or effort) that it might be interesting to have a detail index - maybe broken out by trade and listing the details, the sheet the detail is located on and every sheet that refers to it. Ideally, in a PDF the user could click a detail and it would bring up a menu box listing the pages\plans\views that the detail was called out on. And then a hyperlink to the CA 3d viewer. I'd pay a little bit of money if CA would develop an integrated PDF creator\editor - I'd rather just skip layout TBH, I don't like to do any drafting work in layout view and if we skipped the layout and went straight to PDF, when an outside consultant (last week it was my structural engineer) adds a comment to a PDF I'd be able to link him to something akin top the 3d viewer, but a CA Live PDF. FWIW, I would use it myself. There are lots of times I just want to add notes based on a field visit and it would be great to have a single PDF that reflected bot the the archival work done in a CA model but synced with a distributed document in use by the field. This is actually kind of what Plan Grid offers (very kind of), but its not synced to CA so no use to me.

Great info and thanks. Looks like i may be able to learn something new. Plangrid is the PDF tool that has the label reading and hyperlinking function. Theres another similar product that does the same thing but i cant remember its name.

Thanks Joey. The %page% macro doesn't fix the numbering, it breaks it and renumbers every following page throwing detail callouts, previously issued sheet indexes and internal sheet references and so on out of whack off. Like the old window schedules. I've never been able to get the callout in a plan to locate the detail it refers to in another page of the layout. Is there a macro for that? I mean obviously there should be, and some PDF tools are smart enough to go through the plan and read the callouts then find the detail they refer to and hyperlink them which seems like pretty obvious function.

Thanks that looks like a good method. IMHO if a sheet has been given a discipline and auto numbered, when i duplicate that sheet it could be in the same disxipline and the autonumber would offer bates functuonality. I guess in a perfect world ART would acquire and integrate a great PDF tool into Chief.

Thus the question...how to automate it....but i spose thats part of the magic of bates, new sheets dont alter any other sheet numbers. It probably is easy enough. But now i have ro number every sheet manuall as the sheet numbering macro wont work since CA doesnt support bates....hmmm....sounds like im missing skmething. @joey_martin do you have a macro that does bates numbering?

Bates numbering is generally used in the production of documents to enumerate the pages. My primary use would be to create a plan set with sheets numbered using tis syatem. The new sheet created after sheet one would be sheet two. The sheet inserted between sheet one and sheet 2 would be sheet 1.1. I assume from the hilarity this ask occasions that its a ridiculous thing to expect from Chief....sigh...... I can always just print my layout to PDF with no sheet numbers and let the PDFG do the heavy lifting of indexing and numbering the sheets, but it seems like a reasonable utility for a program that produces what are intended to be documents. In that vein, I have started doing my design approvals from a #D model using the Chief hosting and viewer. The 3d viewer is also useful when explaining things to the crew. Out of curiosity, what do you guys do when you want to add a new sheet the planset? Do you use a different template? Do you seperate your MEP, structural, notes and other sheets in your numbering and indexing system system? And label them manually? Or.....

And how to automate it?

Whers the chagrined embarassment emoji? I woulda sworn I had looked for a comment column to add top the schedule.....

Got all my note types built, then built again, on the fly in annosets, pretty circular process, but since I only need to do it once in a very great while, who cares I don't seem to be able to get note comments to display in the notes schedule, has anyone else tried this? I've gotten a grip on the nomenclature as notes report to multiple schedules - interesting but maybe not useful, it might be a little too complicated to explain to subs, suppliers and homeowners. I like the idea of a "master" note schedule, display all note type, with a column locating them by sheet or by plan name or something...

Yup, I'm gonna have to do the same - this is sort of like the rev cloud thing, I'd love to be able to set a default on the fly, drop 3 or 4 items, then set a different default - I'm sure there's a way, I just have to decide its useful enough to invest the time to learn...it's been so long since I set up my annosets that may be the solution anyway. Thanks for all the tips and direction

Thanks, i spose I'm so used to working the way I work I hardly ever have to modify my active defaults - new note tool looks like really being worth the effort though. I'm clearly losing my mind today, now I cant get pattern lines to shade to grey in layout view and reference plans are throwing me for a loop also - adult onset CRS I fear

Has anyone figured out a way to set a default note type?

Note schedules are gonna be great. I'd really like to a function similar to Google Keep - paste a list of things into Keep, it treats each line seperately - so I could dump a list of comments from an owner or plan checker into a schedule, it would automatically create a callout for each note and then I could place the callout.

My contact with WCCC is as an outside plan check firm in California (West Coast Code Consultants). If you can find a licensed architect willing to review and seal your plans digitally, I'd expect most jurisdictions would accept a locally printed seal and signature. Technically, they probably shouldn't, but if its a smaller project and simple stuff I bet they would. I know all my truss calcs are submitted that way. I like having lunch with my engineer, so I've never tried printing his signature from a PDF. If I do, I'll report back.

I'm gonna check with my crews, but I'm a former field guy and I've tried various methods to illustrate construction, tending more and more towards a note block on each plan. I've tried putting details on the same sheet as the plans, that is actually very easy build from, on a small job I can put foundation aplan and details on one sheet, but we mostly do additions and remodeling. I'd say as a designer, I WAY prefer keynotes, I can build a list of comments, then drop the callouts on the plan. As adrafter, I dont really care, I just want a system where I can, with one or two key strokes\button clicks, drop the same verbose or verbose+graphical content in multiple locations AND have them all "stay in sync". I think the use of a macro library is ana lternate path to the keynotes. As a tradesman first and contractor second, I'm pretty neutral - I've worked as an inspector also and TBH an awful lot of what plan checkers and designers (proffessioanl and otherwise) focus on is pretty well ignored in the field, as often as not becuase it is just reiterating what is common knowledge to the trades. My window guy wouldn't sell me untempered windows in a tempered window location and the inspector is gonna inspect for them regardles of the plans.

There is a little font editor in Windows - in theory I can create new characters in any font I use - I took a gander and it might, just might, be doable....

Is there a way to create or add a special symbol in the macro tool? I'd love to be able to have the whatever shape I'm using for callouts as a shape I could place in a line of text.

Yeah, I kind of agree. i tried plant schedules, its a bit cumbersome. More of the same gives more flexibility but is equally cumbersome. I dont think key notes is an exotic request. I understand that not everyone uses them but it is a pretty widely recognized and commonly employed tool.

I'll be interested to see the answer(s) but I'm afraid it may be no.