Forums >> Revit Structure >> Technical Support >> Searching for the instances of a family within a project

thazell

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I am currently troubleshooting some old files.  Is there any way to search for the occurrence of a family in a file.  I know how to select all instances of a family and see how many occur.  Is there a way to locate these instances?

Thank you in advance

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WWHub

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Joined: Tue, May 16, 2006
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I do it from a 3D view.

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thazell

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Thanks for the response, actually the families are detail families in the drafting views. 

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WWHub

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I wish you had been clear initially.

No way that I know of to find these items short of opening each view.

But here is a "bubble sort" option...

• Open a new copy of the program
• Make sur you know how many instances you have
• Delete 1/2 the views then see how many instances you still have ... hopefully all of them
• If say 1 drops off, you can search for one in the original views you deleted by bringing them back and deleting 1/2 of those.
• Delete 1/2 of remaining and look at how many

As you can see, this can be a fairly fast way of finding the instances.

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thazell

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Thank you very much.  That is a creative way to find the instances.

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thazell

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Can a Schedule be created listing the family and the views they are in?

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WWHub

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I checked for that first and did not see a way.

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thazell

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Thank you for your help. Find location of instance should be on the Revit wish list. If anyone finds another way, I am all ears. 

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thazell

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The solution I came up with is this:

1. Select all instances

2. On the manage tool bar "show ids of selection"

3. Copy and paste into notepad

4. Copy a single ID from notepad

5. On the manage tool bar "select by Id"

6. Show

That's a solution that helps me find the orphaned family instances that exist in my project.

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Locate instances of family, also Hello!

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