While working on the design, either architecture or interior design, you sometimes need to add cornice details like the one shown below ...

Cornice elements are created using a wall sweep element, from Revit Ribbon > Build Panel > Wall Sweep

The wall sweep element uses a default profile, a simple rectangle. But if you need to create a custom profile, you'll need to follow these steps:

• Create a new family

This concludes this Revit Tip of The Week. Share with your architect / interior designer friends who need to learn this tool. 
For a comprehensive training course, the easiest way to learn Revit is to attend group or individual sessions with a Certified Autodesk Instructor. Start today by booking your free first session.

When you first launch a new project in Revit after installation, you'll see a message like this >

If you've installed Revit correctly -with connection to internet- you should see a list of templates that you can use to start your project. A template includes preset views, levels, annotation elements, ... etc that you will use in your project. Without a template, you only get to choose between Metric or Imperial units, and you'll find it really difficult to work with elevations, sections and other tasks. See below examples.

If you don't have the required Revit templates to start with, you may download them from Autodesk website link for the complete Revit content
​You may also go to Revit Courses Downloads section to get a quick template to start with. If you have more questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at info@revit-courses.com for any quick fixes or request for a comprehensive training online or at your place.

So, you have a tool that you use frequently. Instead of looking into the Ribbon bar tabs everytime you need that tool, create a shortcut for it!

One of my most used commands is Trimming. Let's see how to activate it with the keyboard. First, switch to the modify tab and hover with your mouse over the trim tool. You can see a box showing brief explanation of the Trim/Extend to Corner Tool. Notice the shortcut between brackets (TR). 

If you try moving your mouse over the other 2 Trim modes, you'll see they have no set shortcuts for now. Let's add a keyboard shortcut to the 'Trim/Extend Multiple Elements' Command.

• Click the Revit icon at the top left corner to open the main menu
• Then, click the 'Options' button at the bottom of the menu

You've now successfully set-up a new shortcut to use.

Note: If you assign a single letter shortcut, like 'J' for example, you'll need to press J, followed by Space-bar to activate the shortcut. On the other hand, shortcuts that are of two or more letters, Like 'TR' or 'TTR', require nothing but pressing the assigned letters "You do not need to press Space-bar or Enter to activate the shortcut".

If you're working on a big shared model, and you find your synchronize process taking a lot of time, try closing all open views before you hit the synchronize button.

Revit takes so much time regenerating views that you've open. Use the 'Close Hidden Windows' button on your quick access bar before you synchronize to minimize the time taken to regenerate them!