Creating Keynote List for Roof Plan Model - Step-by-Step Guide

We have just updated our A3.1 sheet with our latest roof plan information. And what I really want to do next is to start keynoting the drawing itself, the information over in the model. But I felt that it would make more sense for you, for us first to go ahead and get a keynote list together, and then after we have the keynote list, then we can have that sitting alongside us as we start updating the keynotes on the roof plan model.

So the keynotes are going to be a separate drawing file that will be drawn one-to-one, and they will be XREFed or reference detached into our A3.1 sheet file. So let's go File, New, and let's use the template. And let's save the file with the name CAD301 Keynotes, Roof Plan.

So I'm going to be choosing the file CAD301 Keynotes, Roof Plan, and that's going to be the drawing that we're going to be working on. Now, all of this information will be title block E kind of information. So from a layer standpoint, let's go ahead and create a new layer, A-TTLB, because it's going to be a title block type of information.

Make it the current layer, and set its color to 120. So again, the layer is A-TTLB.

The color is 120, and I will close the interface. Now, when we use this keynotes information, we are going to be bringing that information into our title block. So I'm going to recommend that we handle this the same way that we did when we were creating our drawing title areas, in that we're going to first go to the Insert tab and go to Reference Attach.

We'll scroll down, and we will choose our VDCI-TTLB file. And I'm going to pop it in as an attachment at 00, with a scale factor of 1, click OK, zoom extents, zoom in real-time, and save the file. We're going to be detaching this in a few minutes, because what we need to do is we need to get this information.

Now, I don't know if you've had the chance yet to look at the keynote handouts that we have for the floor plan, the elevations, and the roof plan, but you probably have hopefully noticed that they'll all be going into this Keynotes area on the top right. What will typically happen is that when we xref attach the keynotes into our deliverable sheet files, we will be popping them in using the top right-hand corner. So in all of our drawings, the 00 will be the top right-hand corner for the keynotes.

So what I'm going to do is go to the Home tab. Now, if you look at your VDCI A3.1 handout that includes the elevation and the roof plan keynotes, you'll notice that we have the top half being occupied by the elevation and the bottom half by the roof plan. So what I'm going to do is draw a rectangle from the end up here to the midpoint of this vertical line right here.

So you can see that I now have a rectangle that will eventually occupy half of this spot. We have the rectangle drawn. We no longer need to have our title block in there.

So insert tab, reference manager. I will choose the title block, right-click, and detach it, and close the file controller to save. Now, if I type the command base, you can see that the base point is 00.

We need to move this geometry so that the top right-hand corner will be 00. So home tab, move, select, enter to say I'm done, from the end of the top right to,000. Again, I did not need to have the third zero, but that's all fine.

I'm now going to take this rectangle and explode it. So I will choose to explode the rectangle. And you can see that I need a line that will give me a half-inch space underneath here.

So I'm going to go offset, the value 0.5, pick and go down, enter, CTRL + S to save. I want to add my text here that says 'roof plan keynotes.' I'm going to use the bounding box.

Now, again, our default value has the text height set very, very large at six inches actually. So I can either key it in now and come back and change it, or I can reset the variable. So I just hit escape.

I'm just going to go to Mtext, single-line text. It says specify a start point. I'm picking anywhere.

I'm going to give it a height, in this case of a quarter of an inch, 0.25, then enter. Accept an angle of zero and type something, then enter, enter. I'm going to now delete this.

I went erase. I'm now going to go to the Mtext. It's asking for the bounding box.

I will say the end of the top left to the end of the bottom right over here. I want my justification to be middle center. You can see that the text height is a quarter of an inch.

And so I will now just key in roof plan keynotes. And I can close the text editor, CTRL + S to save. Now, what's going to happen is in a couple of minutes, we are actually going to be populating in our keynote legend callouts.

But what I'd like to do is get the text done here on the right. If you look at the bottom of your handout, you can see that the left-hand side of the text is a half inch over from this left line. So I'm just going to offset by half an inch, go here to here.

And I'm going to do Mtext. My bounding box will go from the intersection here. I will take it to the end at the bottom right.

Now, I need to make my height an eighth of an inch,.125. Then enter. So it's now an eighth of an inch. And then I start typing gutter seamless.

And the list goes on and on. What I'm going to do, if you don't mind, is rather than you spend all of your time watching me type, I'm going to pause the video. When I come back, you'll see that all the text typing has been completed.

So I'll see you in just a couple seconds. I have completed my typing. But I'm still in Mtext.

And I'd like you to see a couple of things. Do you see how the word prefinished is not in the default library? So I'm going to pick it, right-click, and say 'add to dictionary.' Same thing with 'splash block.'

Pick it, right-click, add to dictionary. So these are now in my dictionary itself. Now, when I was typing, I typed this row, hit ENTER, which took me to dormer vent, hit ENTER, and then diverter strip, hit ENTER, etc.

Then I was typing all this, and just continued on. I did not hit ENTER after each line because there's a chance that I'm going to want to move and resize this in a little bit. So I'm going to close the editor.

Now, I'm going to pick it one time. I'm going to take the grip here and move it ever so slightly to the left. So I've just made the box a little bit narrower and hit escape and CTRL + S to save.

The next thing I'm going to do is bring in my keynote symbol. So insert tab, block insert. I will go to browse, and my keynote symbol is 01090A08.

And again, remember that when we drew the A08 file, it was on layer 0. And since it was on layer 0, when I bring it into this file, it will be using the actual layer on which I'm currently drawing. So A08, go to open, specify insertion point on screen. That's fine.

A scale factor of 1. That's fine. Okay. And I'm going to pop it in right here.

Rotation angle, I will accept at 0 because I did not deselect that. The keynote symbol will be 1 and then enter, and I have it there. Now, if you look at your handout, you can see that this symbol needs to be an eighth of an inch over from there.

So I'm going to go and say move the symbol from the end of here to the intersection of here. And then I'm going to go back and say move this guy, enter to say I'm done, arbitrary base point at 0.125, minus 0.125, then enter. So I'm moving it over an eighth of an inch and down an eighth of an inch and save the file.

Now what I want to do is I want to move the text down. So I'm going to say move, pick on the text, arbitrary base point, put ortho on, and I will move the text down so that I have an alignment going on here. I'm going to be picky and move it up just a little bit more.

CTRL + S to save. Now what I can do is I can either multiple copy or I can array the symbol. So I'm just going to try array.

So I will say array. It says select the objects. I'm about to pick it, but I see that I have one, two, three, four, five, six, or seven or eight of these texts that I'm going to do.

So I'm going to go ahead and choose that. That's the entity. I'm going to say that I have one column.

I'm going to say eight rows. I will say my total distance is minus five inches, and I will say make it associative. And now I have this, and you can see that I can close the array.

I can now choose the array, and I can pick on this second grip up here, which is letting me control the spacing between the arrays. See what's going on? So let me hit escape. So again, I had the array.

It's associative. This is indicating the bottom of the array. This one down here is showing the bottom of the array.

But if I choose not on the top, but on the second grip, and if I drag my hand up because they're associative, I can zoom in and stretch, and I'm now positioning them so they line up nicely. I can now explode the associative array, so it's no longer associative. But then I can now erase out these guys, and I can move this one down so it lines up there.

I'm going to move it up, and now I need to start changing values. So I have one. Double-click on it.

Say two. Double-click on it. Say three.

Double-click on that. Say four. Click on that.

Say five. Double-click on it. Say six.

And then CTRL + S to save. So you can see the logic in having my array associative, because it lets me change the spacing. And the beauty is that because I was using the default enter, enter on the text, I have consistent spacing between those guys.

Now, I want to erase out this guideline, which I don't need. Zoom extents. Zoom in real-time.

Save the file. And what I can now do is bring my keynotes into my 301 sheet file, and then we can go into our model. So I'm going to go into my 301 sheet file.

I'm on layer zero. I'm in paper space. I'm going to go reference attach.

I want to scroll down and choose my keynotes roof plan. Specify insertion point on screen as a standard attachment. Okay.

And I'm going to pop it in at the midpoint of this line right over here on the right. CTRL + S to save. And now we have our VDCI A3.1 sheet with our roof plan keynotes in it.

And now we can go into the model file and begin our keynoting.