White Space character as Dimension Override

Here is slightly nasty, anti-BIM trick: 

If you are trying to override a dimension in Revit with a different dimension, it can be a pain.  Yes, you can mess with the ’rounding’ to try and get it right, or you can override with a decimal point, but what if you just want to show something that is totally different to the actual dimension without having a little dot floating around?

  1. Open up the ‘Character Map’ (Start – Accessories – System Tools – Character Map).  
  2. Scroll down until you see a bunch of blank boxes
  3. Copy one of the blank characters using the buttons at the bottom of the dialog.

  4. Go to Revit.
  5. Double click on the dimension you want to change.
  6. Paste the white space character into the ‘Replace with text’ box.
  7. Type the dimension you want in the ‘Above:’ part
  8. Drag the dimension into the correct location.

Like I said, this isn’t really ‘Best Practice’.  Use this workaround with care!

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BIM Troublemaker
12 years ago

thats really satanic.

Anonymous
Anonymous
12 years ago

Doesn't work for Revit 2011.

Anonymous
Anonymous
12 years ago

…Not working in RAC 2012, Windows 7.

Luke Johnson
12 years ago

I did this exact process in RAC2011 and RAC2012, Windows 7 64-bit. I think its important to choose the correct white space character. I found that
U+200E: Left-to-Right Mark
U+200F: Right-to-Left Mark

were both successful in both versions.