How to Create Custom Grid Lines in Revit

A client standard lands in your inbox and it says grid lines are red, the bubble is a hexagon, and the segment between the heads is dotted. The office template has none of that. You change the grid type colour, reload the view, and only the line between the bubbles turns red. The circle stays black, the letter inside it stays black, and now you are three settings deep into a family you have never opened.

Grids look like the simplest annotation in the model. They are also one of the most exposed: every plan, section and elevation in the set carries them, the structural and MEP models reference them, and a client or authority template will often dictate exactly how they look. Getting the appearance right once, in the template, saves the same fiddly fix being repeated on every project that follows.

The walkthrough below follows a recorded lesson from the Archgyan Revit channel. Every step described as demonstrated is a step shown in the video, with a link to the exact moment. The sections on where the settings live, office conventions, QA and common mistakes are the professional context a ten minute recording cannot fit, and they are flagged where they start.

Placing grids and letting Revit number them

The video opens with the basics, because the customisation only makes sense once the default behaviour is clear. The Grid tool sits on the Architecture tab, or you type GR as the shortcut. Draw the first vertical line top to bottom and its head reads 1. Draw the second and it increments to 2 on its own. Copy a pair of lines across and the copies renumber in sequence without any manual input.

The horizontal direction works the same way with one extra step. Draw the first horizontal grid, click into the bubble, and rename it A. Copy it down and the copies become B, C and so on. Revit continues whatever sequence the previous grid used, letters or numbers, which is why you rename the first one and let the rest follow.

The professional habit here is to set the naming direction before you copy anything. The convention in most offices (numbers one way, letters the other, letters running in the direction the structural engineer expects) should be fixed in the template so nobody has to remember it. The sibling post on creating and renaming grids with Dynamo covers the automated version of the same logic for large grids.

Grid extents: locking, unlocking and the second bubble

Select a grid line and you can drag its end. Drag it until it snaps to the ends of the neighbouring grids and the whole row becomes one aligned set: drag one end and they all move together. That alignment is what keeps grid heads sitting on a clean line outside the building footprint.

Sometimes you want one grid to break ranks, for example a short grid that only needs to reach a stair core. Select it and click the small lock symbol at its end. With the lock released, that grid drags independently left or right without pulling the others with it.

The bubble only appears at one end by default. Select the line and you will see a checkbox at the other end; tick it and the head shows on both ends, top and bottom or left and right. Whether you show both ends is usually a drawing-standard decision: most plan sets show heads on two sides, sections often need only one.

Changing the grid line colour with a new type

Now the customisation proper. Select a grid and open Edit Type. The grid type dialog lists every grid type in the project, and the video follows the rule that should be reflex by now: duplicate before you change anything. The new type gets a descriptive name (the demo uses a “red grid lines” naming pattern), and then the Segment Color is switched from black to red.

Click OK and only the grid you selected turns red, because only that grid uses the new type. To change the rest, select all the grids and swap their type in the Properties palette. They all pick up the red segment.

This is where most people stop and get surprised. Look closely and only the line between the bubbles is red. The circle and the text inside it are still black. The grid type controls the segment; the head is a separate annotation family, and its colour lives somewhere else entirely.

Finding and opening the grid head family

To change the circle, you need to know which family draws it. Back in Edit Type, the Symbol parameter names it: in the demo it is the stock Grid Head - Circle family, and the project contains only that one symbol.

You can open it two ways. Select the family from the Symbol dropdown to confirm its name, then go to the Project Browser and search the Families branch for it. Right-click the family and choose Edit to open it in the Family Editor.

When the family opens you may see very little, because the reference lines are hidden. Type VV to open Visibility/Graphic Overrides, go to the Annotation Categories tab and switch the reference lines back on. With them visible you can see how the circle is built.

The circle is parametric. Select it and you can change its radius; the demo tries 8 to show the effect. Bubble size is one of the parameters a drawing standard will specify, and this is where it lives, not in the grid type.

Object Styles: a subcategory for the bubble colour

Select the circle line and look at its subcategory. The family ships with only one subcategory, Grid Heads. Colour in a family is driven by the subcategory, so to make the circle red you need a new one.

Go to Manage > Object Styles and create a new subcategory, named in the demo as a red grid lines subcategory and grouped under Grid Heads. Set its Line Color to red and leave the Line Weight at 1. Then select the circle and assign it to the new subcategory.

Load the family back into the project and choose Overwrite the existing version. The circle is now red. The text is still black, because a label is not a line and does not follow Object Styles.

Why a subcategory rather than a direct colour override? Because subcategories survive the round trip into every project the family is loaded into, and they are controllable per view through Visibility/Graphics. A BIM manager can turn the red heads off in a specific view template, or grey them out in a coordination view, without touching the family again. Direct overrides give you none of that.

Recolouring the label text

Back in the family, select the text and open Edit Type. Again the demo duplicates the text type first, naming the copy after its size and colour (4.5 mm red in the video), then changes the colour to red.

It is worth noticing what this text actually is. Click Edit Label and you will see it is a label reading the Name parameter, with a sample value that only affects how the family preview looks. Change the sample value if you want, it makes no difference in the project. The label is what turns “A” and “1” from the grid into text on the drawing.

Load back into the project, overwrite again, and now the segment, the circle and the text are all red. Three separate settings in three separate places, which is exactly why this trips people up.

Building a grid head family from scratch

The edit above reuses the stock family. If you need a different shape, start fresh. Go to File > New > Family and look in the Annotations folder. There is a dedicated grid head template, and there is the Generic Annotation template; the video uses Generic Annotation to show the full process.

The first thing to do with a generic annotation is change its category to Grid Heads. Until you do, the family will not appear in the Symbol dropdown of the grid type, and you will wonder where it went.

Next, on the Create tab choose Label, place it near the intersection of the reference planes, and add the Name parameter, giving it a sample value such as 01 so you can see it.

Centring the label precisely is awkward because the label’s origin is not its visual centre. The trick in the video is to select the text and make it a detail group. The group gains a midpoint grip, and you can use Move from that midpoint to land the text exactly on the crossing of the reference planes. The name of the group does not matter.

Finally draw the symbol. The demo uses the Line tool with the inscribed polygon option to draw a hexagon around the label, sized so it sits comfortably around the text without dominating it.

Saving to the library and loading into the project

Save the family into the office or personal library rather than a project folder. The demo names it with the firm name followed by the family name, in this case a grid line polygon, and sets the backup count to 1 so the library does not fill with .0001.rfa files.

Load it into the project. Select a grid, Edit Type, duplicate the type again, name it after the polygon head, set the segment colour back to black for this one, and pick the new family in the Symbol dropdown. Click OK and the hexagonal bubble appears.

Fixing the segment that runs through the hexagon

This is the part that is not obvious and is the most valuable minute of the video. With a polygon head, the grid segment carries on through the bubble instead of stopping at its edge. Revit does not know where the shape ends.

The fix is to edit the family and draw a circle around the hexagon, then set that circle to invisible. Reload and overwrite, and the segment stops at the circle. The explanation given is that Revit recognises circles as grid bubble boundaries better than other shapes, so an invisible circle gives it the boundary it was looking for while the hexagon stays the visible symbol. This is a hack, and it is a good one: it works for triangles, squares and any other head shape a client standard might throw at you.

Changing the line pattern

The last setting is back in the grid type. Edit Type shows a Segment Pattern parameter; switch it from solid to a dotted pattern and every grid using that type becomes dotted. Segment Weight sits next to it if the standard calls for a heavier or lighter line.

That covers everything the video demonstrates: placing, naming, extents, segment colour, head colour, label colour, a custom head shape, the overlap fix and the segment pattern. The rest of this post is the context around it.

Where each setting lives (not in the video)

The single most useful thing to take away is a map of which dialog controls what. Write it into the office BIM standard; it will save an hour of hunting per new team member.

What you want to change	Where it lives	Scope
Colour of the line between the heads	Grid type > Segment Color	Per grid type
Pattern (dashed, dotted) of the segment	Grid type > Segment Pattern	Per grid type
Weight of the segment	Grid type > Segment Weight	Per grid type
Which bubble family is used	Grid type > Symbol	Per grid type
Colour and weight of the bubble outline	Family > Object Styles subcategory	Per family, overridable per view
Size of the bubble	Family > radius or sketch dimensions	Per family
Colour, size and font of the letter or number	Family > label text type	Per family
Whether the bubble shows at both ends	Grid instance > end checkbox	Per grid, per view
Whether the head shows in a given view	Visibility/Graphics > Annotation > Grids	Per view or view template
Where the bubble sits in a view	Grid instance > 2D extents, Propagate Extents	Per view

Note the split: the type controls the line, the family controls the head. Change the wrong one and nothing visible happens, which is a common source of “Revit is broken” messages.

Office conventions that make this stick (not in the video)

A customised grid is only useful if it is in the template. Once you have a working family and type, do the following.

1. Load the head family into the project template, not just the live project, and set it as the Symbol on the default grid type. New projects inherit it automatically.
2. Name grid types for their purpose, not their colour. A type called “Red” is fine until the standard changes to blue. “Grid - Architectural” and “Grid - Structural Reference” survive the change.
3. Prefix custom families with the office code and keep them in the managed library, as the video does. A grid head that lives only inside one project will be lost at the next template refresh.
4. Keep the subcategory name descriptive and grouped under Grid Heads. Anyone opening Visibility/Graphics should be able to tell what they are turning off.
5. Document the invisible-circle trick next to the family. The next person to edit the hexagon will delete the “pointless” circle and reintroduce the overlap.
6. Decide the two-end rule per view type and bake it into view templates where possible, rather than leaving it to each drafter.

The wider principle is the same one that applies to every annotation family: fix it in the project template and in view templates, not in the project.

Coordination and export considerations (not in the video)

Grids are shared geometry. A few things follow from that.

Linked models. Grids in a linked structural model display with the linked file’s types, not yours. If the structural engineer’s bubbles are blue and yours are red, the plan will show both unless you override the link’s grid category in Visibility/Graphics or copy and monitor the grids into your model. Customising your own grid type does not restyle theirs.

Copy/Monitor. Monitored grids adopt your model’s grid type, so whatever you set up here is what the coordinated grids will look like. Set the type before you run Copy/Monitor; changing it afterwards is fine but means revisiting every view.

IFC and DWG export. The head family is 2D annotation. IFC export carries the grid axes (IfcGrid) but not the bubble graphics, so nothing you do here affects the coordination model. DWG export flattens the bubble to lines and text on the grid layer, and a polygon head exports as a polyline, which is usually what the client’s CAD standard expects anyway.

Printing in greyscale. A red segment prints as a mid grey. If the set will be printed in black and white, check that the chosen colour still reads clearly against walls and hatches.

Common mistakes (not in the video)

• Changing the segment colour and expecting the whole grid to change. The head is a family. See the table above.
• Editing the stock family without duplicating it. The video duplicates the type and the text type at every step. Overwriting the default Grid Head - Circle means you cannot get it back without reloading from the Revit library.
• Forgetting to change the category from Generic Annotation to Grid Heads. The family loads fine and never appears in the Symbol list.
• Deleting the invisible circle. It looks like a leftover. It is the boundary the segment stops at.
• Leaving backups at the default. Every save adds another .0001.rfa next to the family in the library. Set backups to 1 before the first save.
• Restyling the head when the real problem is view overrides. If a grid looks wrong in one view and right in another, check the view’s Visibility/Graphics overrides on the Grids category before you open the family.
• Setting 2D extents by hand in thirty views. Grid head positions are per view. Fix one plan and use Propagate Extents, which the Dynamo grid post discusses alongside dimensioning.

QA checklist before the template ships (not in the video)

1. Open a blank project from the template, place two grids each way, and confirm the default type uses the custom head and the expected colour and pattern.
2. Toggle the second-end checkbox and confirm both heads render identically.
3. Place a grid at an angle and confirm the label stays upright and centred.
4. Load a structural model with its own grids and confirm yours remain distinguishable.
5. Print a plan to PDF in colour and in greyscale and check readability.
6. Confirm the family is saved in the managed library with backups set to 1 and the office prefix.

Next steps

Grid heads are a small example of a larger skill: understanding the split between the system type in the project and the annotation family that draws it. The same logic governs section heads, level heads, elevation tags and callouts, so once this workflow is comfortable, those take minutes.

If you are building the office template or taking over one someone else left behind, the Complete Revit Course covers families, annotation and template setup as a connected workflow rather than as isolated tricks, which is how a BIM coordinator actually meets them on a project.