In the following lessons I will show you in detail how you can link an AutoCAD drawing to a Revit project (Linking). Until now, you have had the opportunity to see how data from a CAD file can be transferred to Revit (Importing), and this can be very useful, regardless of the fact that the data transferred in this way is only a representation of the current state. On the other hand, if you connect the CAD drawing to Revit, you will be able to automatically follow all the changes that it may undergo in the meantime.

To show you how to do it, I have already opened a suitable example and you can look for it among the exercise files. Admittedly, it does not contain any elements, but that is why it includes pre-defined levels, where the one that represents the ground floor of the future object (00-Ground) is active.

To begin with, I need to look for the icon called Link CAD in the Insert section and open a new frame with one click. It will automatically display the file that I prepared as an example for practice, so it won’t be difficult for me to select it and go to the options in the lower part of the frame. In this lesson, I would like to show you how to adjust the colors, so I will immediately open the Colors menu and activate the first option – Invert. If I then click the Open button, a new drawing will appear on the screen, but its elements will be displayed in a slightly unusual way. In other words, all colors will be changed and instead of red the drawing will now be dominated by blue. If you don’t like this view, you won’t be able to remove it in the usual way, that is, by using the Undo function. This can only be done if you start the Manage Links function by selecting the icon of the same name and find the corresponding file in the box that follows. In this case, it is located in the CAD Formats section, so it will not be difficult for me to select it and complete this procedure by selecting the Remove button. As soon as I close the frame with OK, the associated CAD drawing will disappear from the screen, so I can double-click the wheel to start the Zoom to Fit function and display the usual markers.

After I solved it, I can repeat the whole procedure, restart the Link CAD function, select the appropriate example and choose the Preserve option from the menu. This time the linked drawing will be displayed in its original colors, although that won’t add much to its visibility either. This problem can be easily solved and to show you what it looks like in practice, I need to remove the currently linked drawing first. This can only be done using the Manage Links function, so I will click on the icon of the same name, look for the appropriate content and select the Remove button to definitely remove it from the screen.

In the end, I just need to repeat the entire procedure by selecting the Link CAD function and selecting the item Black and White from the Color menu. In this way, I managed to eliminate all colors, which means that the entire drawing will be shown with black lines. This mode suits me the most, as it can be used to achieve maximum contrast and show all the details more clearly.

Before I finish this lesson, I’ll take the opportunity to reset the entire project, which involves applying the Manage Links function and removing the linked drawing.