Revit Tips: Referencing Sheet or Back Referencing

Revit has a parameter built into views called Referencing Sheet (which is also known as Back Referencing). Referencing Sheet lists the sheet number that a view placed on a sheet is referenced from. For instance, if a floor plan on sheet A2.01 - FIRST FLOOR PLAN shows a section cutting through a wall and the reference on that sheet is 1/A3.05. If you look at view 1 on sheet A3.05, you'll find the section cutting through the wall. On that view title may also be a Referencing Sheet field telling you when you look at that view that the section was cut on sheet A2.01.

 

Pretty useful and logical right?

 

Unfortunately, the Referencing Sheet value doesn't always reference back to the sheet that you would expect it to.

 

Let's say you have a set of drawings set up as:

 

A0.XX General

A1.XX Site

A2.XX Plans

A3.XX Sections

A4.XX Elevations

A5.XX Enlarged Plans

A6.XX RCP

 

And you have a section that you want to place on a sheet in the 3.XX series. Why do you get a back reference number from a Site Plan (1.XX) or other view if you created the section in a Floor Plan (2.XX)?

 

Referencing Sheet lists the first sheet, in order, that has a reference to that view. So if the section mark is showing in the Site Plan, it will show as the Referencing Sheet on the sheet for that view. To change that, hide the section annotation in the Site Plan. The Referencing Sheet will then look for the next sheet to have the section mark.

 

Fortunately, if the Referencing Sheet is listing a view that is different from what you want it to show, you know right where to look because the Referencing Sheet parameter tells you what sheet to look at..

 

One place where Referencing Sheet values can get more fouled up is with Dependent Views.

 

Let's say you've got a floor plan split into two areas, A to the west/left and B to the east/right and both plans are Dependent views off of the same Parent view. If you have a section, elevation or other callout in Area B, then when you place that view on a sheet, it may very well list the sheet that Area A is on as the Referencing Sheet. This is a bug related to how Dependent views relate to each other via the Parent view. What you will need to do is go into the view for Area A, uncrop the view, find the section/elevation/callout annotation for that view and hide it manually.

 

It can be a frustrating process at times and obviously the tool needs some tweaking, but all in all it's a useful tool and beats entering the information manually.