Saving Layout Page as Template

[gdesignbuild]

 Good evening everyone!

 

  Something that I have been curious about but unable to figure out myself is if I can save a particular layout set to use on future projects. Example: I have a page of deck details that I will often re-use (railing, fastening, nailing, stair details, etc). Often, I will just select all of the drawings on a previous plan, copy and then paste in place on the set I am currently working on. I know that in a plan file, I can just block things together and then save it to the library but not sure how I could do something similar in a layout file? It would be super easy if you could have 2 layouts open at the same time and just copy and paste as you go but that's not possible either.

 

  I have thought of saving these pages (deck detail page, ICF detail page, etc) on a layout page much farther than I would typically use, then I could just scroll through and grab what I need but would be nice to have a cache of certain items. Thanks in advance for any help!

[Chopsaw]

17 minutes ago, gdesignbuild said:

It would be super easy if you could have 2 layouts open at the same time and just copy and paste as you go but that's not possible either.

 

This is natively possible in X13.  It can also be done in previous versions by opening two instances of the program, although this is not recommended and must be done carefully at your own risk remembering not to alter the reference file.

 

You can certainly include as much as you want in a template but the issues is how much is too much and do you want to add what you need or delete everything you do not need. 

[gdesignbuild]

12 minutes ago, Chopsaw said:

 

This is natively possible in X13.  It can also be done in previous versions by opening two instances of the program, although this is not recommended and must be done carefully at your own risk remembering not to alter the reference file.

 

You can certainly include as much as you want in a template but the issues is how much is too much and do you want to add what you need or delete everything you do not need. 

 

 

  That makes sense. My thinking was as follows: For residential plans, my drawing sets rarely go past 15 pages, so maybe the best idea is just to put these detail pages somewhere in the 20's on a page, then I could move forward what I need. Then if the set ends up being 14 pages, when I print, I can just print pages 1-14, leaving out the extra stuff that's just there for copy and pasting.

 

  I just thought maybe there would be a way to put a group of object in a block, or save a certain "page set".

[crosscutter55]

 I believe you should be able to block that  info & send it to your library 

 

[SteveNovato]

+1 for adding to library...

[Richard_Morrison]

One of the MAJOR improvements in X12 was the ability to have more than one layout open at a time. Ed Koenig did a video of a VERY fast way to place details from a detail warehouse layout. The upgrade is worth it for this feature alone.

 

 

[Ed_Orum]

Do a "save as" then save the layout to a new file folder.  Also do a "save as" for the plan you used to create the layout file for the details, notes, etc.
I set mine as the default for all my new Arch D size prints; do it for both the layout and the plan file.
Now, when you open the plan  template, do a "save as" and save it into a folder that will have bot the plan file and the layout.  Do the same for the layout template, making sure to save them both to the same folder.
Next, open the newly named Layout file, and click on the tab where the file associations reside and change the file association to the one for the newly named plan file.
 

[SH_Canada]

On 1/3/2022 at 1:20 PM, Richard_Morrison said:

One of the MAJOR improvements in X12 was the ability to have more than one layout open at a time. Ed Koenig did a video of a VERY fast way to place details from a detail warehouse layout. The upgrade is worth it for this feature alone.

I'm curious, why not just move from library directly to layout?

 

It seems there are two cases in the video

1. copying a detail as is from a warehouse layout file to the current layout file

2. scaling a detail from a plan detail (while sending it to layout)

 

I've been experimenting the last couple days with storing the details in the library and dragging them to layout (into predetermined box sizes). Seems to work okay. the details like siding, insulation etc are controlled by macros I made. It would seem to be as quick, if not quicker as the video's scenario 1. for scenario 2, it looks like you can rescale the user library cad detail once on layout, so it would seem to be close to the same as the video for 2. And given the ability to edit the CAD block directly now, it seems rather fast to change things like the label size.

 

But wondering if I am missing something? 

 

[Richard_Morrison]

8 hours ago, jasonN said:

I'm curious, why not just move from library directly to layout?

This can work okay, but there are a couple of issues that may make this slower:

 

1) The User Library does not store any scale information. If you use a variety of scales, say, 3"=1'-0" for trim details, 1"=1'-0" for structural, full scale for text, etc. every detail has to be scaled somehow as you place it, or immediately resized if you are placing directly on layout. Usually the best way if you want flexibility  is to put each detail in its own CAD Detail with the correct scale and then send to layout. This takes more time.

 

2) One thing that slows down plans is excessive CAD data. You can build up a lot of CAD data quickly if you put these details into your main project file and then send to layout. Better is when you send your CAD Details to Layout from a separate "Warehouse" file, which is pretty much the same thing that Ed is doing, but by having them already placed on another layout, the copy/paste is much faster from that layout to another.

 

I would love it if Chief incorporated a way to send details to layout from its library at a specific scale, but that feature isn't there yet.

[Alaskan_Son]

On 1/2/2022 at 6:48 PM, gdesignbuild said:

 

 

  That makes sense. My thinking was as follows: For residential plans, my drawing sets rarely go past 15 pages, so maybe the best idea is just to put these detail pages somewhere in the 20's on a page, then I could move forward what I need. Then if the set ends up being 14 pages, when I print, I can just print pages 1-14, leaving out the extra stuff that's just there for copy and pasting.

 

  I just thought maybe there would be a way to put a group of object in a block, or save a certain "page set".

Don’t forget that we have CAD Details in layout too.  You can always save your commonly used “Page Sets” to those CAD Details.

[Richard_Morrison]

4 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

Don’t forget that we have CAD Details in layout too.  You can always save your commonly used “Page Sets” to those CAD Details.

This can work well for office standard stuff. However, for reasons that I've never understood, you can't reliably copy and paste placed details from a CAD Detail residing in the layout file onto another layout. But somehow, if the CAD detail resides in a plan file you can.

[SHCanada2]

5 hours ago, Richard_Morrison said:

1) The User Library does not store any scale information. If you use a variety of scales, say, 3"=1'-0" for trim details, 1"=1'-0" for structural, full scale for text, etc. every detail has to be scaled somehow as you place it, or immediately resized if you are placing directly on layout. Usually the best way if you want flexibility  is to put each detail in its own CAD Detail with the correct scale and then send to layout. This takes more time.

Thanks for the info, the only CAD details I have which are to scale, are custom ones, and even those are typically cheated somewhere (bolt is not actually 1/2" wide in CAD). I used to put in stuff like  eave width in the detail, but it was only a number with some fake dim lines. But I've moved to dimensioning the roof plan, and using macros for specifying "2x6" as fascia size.

 

I do add saddles and post caps, but those I usually add directly to cross sections, and I have little CAD blocks that I resize to fit the posts/beams

 

So I think I will try and see how it goes, and if I need something to scale, I'll remember to do it in CAD detail.

 

I've never really understood how one can do a CAD detail to scale when there are things that are close to zero thickness (roofing underlay, tyvek, eave protection, drip edge, etc) and they are right on top of each other. 

 

Thanks again