Find line work overrides

How to Find Linework Overrides in Revit

The Linework tool is much misused in Revit - it seems like a quick and easy way to make individual lines look the way you want. In reality, it wastes much more time than it saves - this is because it is so hard to undo or change later on. My advice to Reviteers is to use it as a last resort when every other method cannot or will not work - instead you should use sub-categories, filters, view visibility overrides or even object styles.

What does a BIM or Model Manager do to figure out when the Linework tool has been used? Well, it is basically guesswork. All you can do is set the linework linestyle to <By Category> and then hover the cursor over any lines that you suspect might have been tampered with using the Linework tool.

Why is this inconsistent with so many other Revit tools that have a 'None' option that sits at the top of the list? Who knows - it is lost in development history, but it makes training harder.

And why is <By Category> not automatically at the top of the list? I guess because it sorts alphabetically - but it is very irritating trying to find it in a list.

Once you have managed to select the linestyle of <By Category> you then hover the mouse over the line and it will probably turn dark blue - which is not easy to spot on a large busy view.