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Compose Revit Sheets with Sheet Builder

Drag details onto a paper canvas in Pirros, then download into Revit as ready-to-go sheets with viewports placed at the correct positions and scale.

Sheet Builder lets you compose Revit sheets directly in Pirros. Drag details from a stash onto a canvas, set positions and scale, and when you download the stash, the Pirros plugin creates real Revit sheets with viewports placed exactly where you put them on the web.

Prerequisites:

  • Edit access on the parent stash

  • A Pirros plugin version that supports Sheet Builder downloads (3.5.48+). If your plugin is out of date, Pirros prompts you to update before you can insert layouts into Revit.

  • Details and families must be uploaded after the Sheet Builder release (May 8, 2026), so they carry the viewport size and scale metadata Sheet Builder needs. Older items will show a "Not yet supported" overlay in the tray until they're re-uploaded — see Why a detail might be blocked from the canvas below.

Where to Find It

Sheet Builder lives inside a stash. From any stash page, you have two ways in:

  • Click Build Sheet in the stash header to start a brand-new layout.

  • Hover a stashed Revit Sheet card and click Edit in Sheet Builder to convert that sheet into an editable layout.

Create a New Sheet

  1. Click Build Sheet in the stash header.

  2. Enter a Sheet Name (e.g., "Floor Plan, Level 1") and a Sheet Number (e.g., "A101"). Both are required.

  3. Click Confirm. The editor opens on a blank canvas.

Convert an Existing Revit Sheet

If your stash already has a Revit Sheet detail and you want to start from its existing layout instead of from scratch:

  1. Hover the Revit Sheet's card in the stash and click Edit in Sheet Builder.

  2. The conversion modal pre-fills the sheet name and number from the source, suffixed with (Copy) — e.g., A101 (Copy). Edit either field if you want.

  3. Click Confirm. Pirros creates a new layout populated with the source sheet's viewports and schedules, and removes the original Revit Sheet detail from the stash. The new layout supersedes it for download.

When the Edit in Sheet Builder button is disabled:

  • The source sheet has no children with viewport metadata (nothing to place — usually means the source was uploaded before the Sheet Builder release).

  • The source sheet contains a Detail View. The tooltip on the disabled button explains this. Detail Views can't be reliably reproduced on a new sheet today — the plugin can't honor their crop regions during sheet creation — so we block conversion rather than ship a broken sheet. Re-upload the source without Detail Views to unblock.

Re-converting the same sheet returns the existing layout instead of creating a duplicate. Safe to click twice.

Place Details on the Canvas

The editor has three areas:

  • Toolbar (top): back arrow, sheet number/name, Edit button (rename or delete the active sheet), + New button (start another sheet without leaving the editor).

  • Detail tray (left): every detail in the parent stash.

  • Canvas (right): the paper area you drop details onto.

To place a detail, drag a card from the tray onto the canvas. The viewport snaps to a 1" grid as you drag; placed-viewport edges snap to each other on subsequent drops. Pirros computes the viewport size from the detail's bounding-box metadata and view scale, so what you see on the canvas is what Revit will draw.

Tray placement rules:

  • Details already placed on the active sheet are hidden from the tray.

  • Details placed on a sibling sheet in the same stash are greyed out — duplicate placements are visible but not blocked.

Why a detail might be blocked from the canvas

If a detail card in the tray shows a yellow overlay and won't drag onto the canvas, it's one of two cases. Both are expected behavior, not bugs — and both are fixable.

1. "Not yet supported. Re-upload from Revit to add this detail to a sheet."

This is the most common one. It appears when the detail was uploaded before the Sheet Builder release (May 8, 2026), so it doesn't have the viewport size and scale information that Sheet Builder needs to render a viewport on the canvas. The plugin only started capturing that metadata as of the Sheet Builder release.

To fix: open the source Revit file in Revit and re-upload it through the Pirros plugin (or re-sync it if you have Live Link enabled). The new upload will include the metadata, and the overlay will go away the next time you open the stash. You only need to do this for the details you actually want to use in Sheet Builder — there's no need to re-upload your whole library at once. Many firms start with a single sheet's worth of details to validate the workflow, then expand.

2. "Detail Views aren't supported. Re-upload as a Drafting View to add this to a sheet."

This appears when the detail's source is a Revit Detail View (not a Drafting View). Detail Views carry a crop region tied to the original model geometry, and the plugin can't reliably reproduce that crop region when creating a new sheet — so we block placement rather than ship a broken sheet.

To fix: in Revit, recreate the view as a Drafting View (or use Revit's "Convert to Drafting View" workflow) and re-upload through the plugin. Drafting Views don't have the same crop dependency and work cleanly in Sheet Builder.

Not sure which view type you have? Open the source file in Revit and check the Project Browser — Drafting Views and Detail Views appear in separate branches. If your details are already Drafting Views and you're still seeing this exact message, you're hitting case 1 (missing metadata), not case 2.

Sheet Size

A dropdown on the canvas lets you choose a paper size: ARCH-A through ARCH-E, ANSI-A through ANSI-E, or Infinite (default).

The selection is a visual guide — it draws a gray paper-bounds overlay on the canvas so you can lay out for a specific format, but it isn't persisted and doesn't constrain where you can place viewports. The actual sheet size used in Revit comes from the title block your Pirros plugin picks at download time based on your Revit project's title block families.

Auto-Save and Empty Sheets

Sheet Builder saves on every action — placing, removing, dragging, aligning, undo/redo. There's no Save button.

If you navigate away from a sheet with no details placed, Pirros prompts: "Delete this empty sheet?" Confirm to remove the layout entirely, or Cancel to stay in the editor. Empty sheets aren't preserved on exit.

Download to Revit

Sheet Builder layouts download as part of the parent stash:

  1. Open the stash and click Download.

  2. The Pirros plugin receives the regular stashed details plus every Sheet Builder layout in the stash.

  3. For each layout, the plugin creates a new Revit ViewSheet, picks an appropriately-sized title block from your Revit project, and places each viewport or schedule at the recorded position and scale.

Revit version compatibility is checked per viewport, not per sheet. If a viewport on the layout was uploaded from a newer Revit version than yours, that single viewport drops out of the download and is listed in the warning block of the download summary — the rest of the layout still ships. You won't lose an entire sheet because one viewport doesn't match.

Sheet Builder Cards in the Stash

Saved layouts appear in the parent stash grid alongside regular details. A Sheet Builder card shows:

  • A thumbnail snapshot of the current layout (auto-captured when you exit the editor).

  • The sheet number and name, following your firm's Card Layout settings for Sheets.

  • A gray Sheet Builder pill in the footer (left) to distinguish it from a Revit Sheet detail.

  • An R{YY} pill in the footer (right) showing the highest Revit version among the placed viewports, when at least one placed child has a Revit version.

  • A hover-revealed Edit in Sheet Builder overlay button that reopens the layout.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: My detail tray shows "Not yet supported. Re-upload from Revit to add this detail to a sheet." on every card. What does that mean?

A: Those details were uploaded before Sheet Builder shipped (May 8, 2026), so they don't carry the viewport size/scale metadata Sheet Builder needs to render the viewport on a canvas. Re-upload the source Revit file through the Pirros plugin (or re-sync via Live Link) and the overlay will clear. This applies to both Drafting Views and Detail Views — view type doesn't matter for this case; upload date does.

Q: Do I have to re-upload my entire detail library to use Sheet Builder?

A: No — only the details you actually want to use in Sheet Builder. There's no rush and no all-or-nothing migration. Most firms start by re-uploading a single project's worth of details to validate the workflow, then expand over time. Older details remain fully usable for everything else in Pirros (search, download, etc.) — they're only blocked from the Sheet Builder canvas specifically.

Q: My detail is a Drafting View but I'm still seeing the "Detail Views aren't supported" overlay. What gives?

A: That message only appears when the underlying view type really is a Detail View. If you're sure you're looking at a Drafting View and still seeing this exact wording, double-check the view type in Revit's Project Browser. If it's confirmed a Drafting View, reach out — that would be a bug worth filing. (Common confusion: the "Not yet supported" overlay (missing metadata) and the "Detail Views aren't supported" overlay are two different messages with two different fixes — see Why a detail might be blocked from the canvas.)

Q: Why is the Edit in Sheet Builder button disabled on my Revit Sheet?

A: Either the source sheet has no children with viewport metadata (it was uploaded before the Sheet Builder release), or it contains a Detail View. Detail Views aren't supported yet — re-upload the source without them, or re-upload after the Sheet Builder release to populate the metadata, to unblock conversion.

Q: Can I rotate a viewport on the canvas?

A: Rotation isn't yet reproduced by the plugin in Revit (the Revit API doesn't accept rotation on viewport creation). For now, rotate viewports in Revit after the sheet is created.

Q: Why does my downloaded sheet look different from what I designed on the canvas?

A: Two common reasons. (1) Title block: the plugin picks a title block from your Revit project, not from Pirros — the paper-size dropdown is a visual guide on the canvas only. (2) Revit version skew: viewports uploaded from a newer Revit version than yours are dropped from the download and listed in the warning block.

Q: Can the same detail appear on multiple sheets in the stash?

A: Yes, but the tray greys out details already placed on a sibling sheet so you can see the overlap. It's a "did you mean to?" signal, not a block.

Q: What happens to the original Revit Sheet when I convert it?

A: It's removed from the stash so the converted layout supersedes it for download purposes. The source detail still exists in your library — only its presence in this stash is cleared.

Q: Where do I see the Build Sheet button?

A: In the stash header on every stash page, when Sheet Builder is enabled for your firm and you have edit access to the stash. View-only users won't see it.

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