The “Create Type catalog files” option, if checked, will create type catalog files next to the family files being saved.
NOTE: The type catalog files will NOT include built-in parameters, such as Manufacturer, Cost, etc. These are most
commonly seen in the Identity Data group.
If type catalog files exist, the new ones being generated will overwrite the old ones.
IMPORTANT: If you choose to “Delete the types in the families” be aware that once the types are removed from the
families, they are gone and cannot be used to regenerate type catalogs again in the future. For example, if you generate
type catalogs and delete the types from the families, then later add a parameter to the families and want to regenerate
the type catalogs, the old type catalogs will get overwritten with new ones that have no types in them.
If you leave the types in the families users can still benefit from this by only loading the desired types into the project
using the type selector dialog, thus keeping the project smaller and lighter and simpler to use than if all the types in the
family were loaded, which is what happens when not using type catalogs.
IMPORTANT: If you choose to “Delete the types in the families” be sure to test this process on some families with this
option turned OFF to ensure the type catalog files generated include all the data necessary. Once the types in the
families have been deleted, the only way to get missing data back is to revert to using backup copies of the families from
before the types were deleted.
If the option to sort the parameters is selected, the parameters in the type catalog files generated will be sorted
alphabetically. If it is not selected, the parameters will appear in the order returned by Revit. In 2015 or later, this is the
order seen within each group on the Family Types dialog in Revit, however the order the grouped parameters appear in
the type catalog file is determined by Revit. For example, the Identity Data group may be shown last in the Revit user
interface, but the parameters from that group may be listed somewhere in the middle.
If the option to sort the types alphabetically is selected, the types listed in the type catalog will be sorted alphabetically,
but this is a TEXT sorting. So if, for example, you have types that start with numbers, they may not appear sorted in
numerical order. For example, you might see something like this:
1
10
2
3
35
4
(Parameter sorting works the same way.)
If the option to sort the types alphabetically is NOT selected, the types will be listed in whatever order Revit provides.
The option to save the type catalog files to *.csv files (instead of the default *.txt files) may be useful if you want to edit
the type catalog files manually in spreadsheet software before finally saving them to *.txt files for production use with
Revit. For example, you may want to delete some parameters (columns) from the type catalog file before the final
renaming to *.txt files, and the easiest way to do that is likely in spreadsheet software.
The option to exclude parameters by name using wildcards can remove parameters from the type catalog that are not
desired.