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If you zoom out you can see that the sheet is a lot bigger than necessary.
We have two ways to solve this problem.
We can put more drawings on the same sheet or we can change the sheet.
These are so called Master Layouts and stored in the Master Layouts folder of the Navigator - Layout book.
You can create or modify any of these masters and use them as bases for the layout book.
You can also place information on them - title blocks - it will be visible on all layouts that use the master as base.
You can change the master layout of one or more selected layouts or a folder too.
All you have to do is to select the layout and select the right master in the list under the Properties area of the Navigator.
Change the master of the West Elevation to "A4 portrait".
Select and drag the drawing to the right position.
To set the same master for all layouts in the "A2 Elevations" folder,
drag the A4 Portrait master on the folder in the Navigator.
To adjust the drawings on all elevation layouts, you can use the Trace reference.
Open the "A 2.1 E1 North Elevation" layout.
Right-click on the "A 2.4 E4 West Elevation" layout
and select Show as Trace Reference.
Position the drawing using the traced layout.
You can use any snap points on both the current and the referenced layout.
Repeat these steps with the other elevation layouts.
This way you can have a consistent, well organized layout book.
Now, we create the Section layouts in a separate folder in one run.
We will use the Sections folder in the View Map, and simply drag it to the Layout Book.
To see both tree structures, we can use the Organizer.
You can open it using the top-left button of the Navigator.
The Organizer’s interface seems like a double Navigator.
You can open different tree views on both sides, and drag and drop content between them.
Open the View Map on the left side
and the Layout Book on the right side.
Select the Sections folder in the View Map
and drag it above the Elevations subset in the Layout Book.
A black line indicates where the subset will be created.
Thanks to the automatic numbering, the ID automatically appears at the Sections subset and the elevation subsets below are re-numbered.
Drag the A4 Portrait master layout on the Sections subset.
Close the Organizer.
Use the Trace and Reference to align the Drawings to the right position, as before.
By default there are preset titles on the layout masters, but you can change or create new ones any time.
Double-click the A4 Portrait layout to open it.
In this view, you have access to its content.
You can place any 2D content here, including text, fills, lines, images, etc.
You can also copy and paste these elements from one master layout to another.
You can see normal texts and texts with "#" sign at the beginning.
These texts are so called ’Autotext’ elements.
The advantage of using these elements is to retrieve information from BIM instead of typing text manually.
Let’s see what information we can use as Autotext.
Activate the Text tool in the Tool Box
and double- click in the empty cell of the title block.
The Text Editor palette appears.
Click the "A" that is: "Insert Autotext" button.
An organized list of available information appears.
You can sort them by category.
Let’s fill in the client data in the empty field of the title block.
Select Client Details in the Category list.
Place and format the text lines to include Client name and address.
Use the formatting tools like pen and text alignment.
Press Enter to start a new row.
Click outside the text editor box to place the text. You can change it at any time later on.
The information displayed here comes from the Project Info dialog box.
To define the information, open File, Info, Project Info dialog.
Fill some fields, and see how those are updated.
Click OK.
There are some other fields, related to layout properties.
These will be filled only when you create a layout based on the master.
Select and delete the content of the Company name field.
We will place an image here.
Select the Drawing tool
and click in the middle of the field.
The Place Drawing dialog appears.
Instead of using an internal view or a view from another ArchiCAD file, let’s use a simple image from an external source.
Click the Browse button
and select "sample overlay" GIF image from the project folder.
Click Open.
Select the drawing, and use the hotspots to resize it to fit into the field.
Open any section or elevation layout to see the result.
Please Note: You can check the status of all drawings using the Drawing Manager.
You can open it from the same menu as the organizer.
Drawing Manager lists all drawings and their status.
You can also update, re-link or embed your drawings from here to speed up your layout management.
You can also make multiple selections and sort the drawings by various properties.
Now we will create a new master layout for the details and visualization.
On these layouts we will place multiple drawings, and we want them to adjust automatically.
Click the New Master Layout button in the Navigator, Layout Book.
Type "A4 Landscape" as name.
Select "A4, ISO, Metric" size from the Size list.
Select the Landscape radio button.
Select "Align and assign Drawings to a Grid" radio button.
Click the Grid Setup button.
In the Grid Setup dialog, set the settings as it is displayed on the screen.
Click OK.
Check the "Set as Default for New layouts" box
and click Create to proceed.
Create a new layout subset
and type "Renderings" as the name.
Open the Organizer.
Create a new layout in the subset,
and name it "Renderings" too.
Drag the rendered views on the layout in the Organizer.
ArchiCAD will regenerate the views; but this might take some time.
The title of the new layout will be "A 4.1 Renderings".
Close the Organizer.
The views are positioned according to the grid but currently they are too big.
Select the drawings on the layout and open the settings.
On the Properties panel set the magnification to "30"
and click OK.
The Project layout book will always be updated automatically as the project develops,
since all the drawings and sheets are linked to their source master content.
If any of the source information changes, ArchiCAD will instantly regenerate and update all the layouts automatically.