Generic Annotation vs Detail Item

In Revit, there are several family categories that families belong to and sometimes it can be confusing which the correct category should be. Specifying the correct category is important because there are built-in Revit functions associated with those categories to make the families work as intended. What’s annoying is that it’s not possible to copy work from one category to the other, which means if you’re changing categories you’ll need to start from scratch. For this discussion we’ll be looking at the difference between a Generic Annotation category versus a Detail Item category.

Let’s look at a break line that is a common symbol that we need in our drawings.

There are a couple of differences in functionality. The first is that grips only show up for the Detail Item category where as they don’t show up in Generic Annotation. The grips allow the family to “flex” by dragging the grips. In both families the reference planes are set to “Weak Reference”.

See below the Detail Item family is selected.

Now, see what happens when the Generic Annotation family is selected. No grips.

The second difference is that the Generic Annotation is annotative (changes size with the scale of the drawing), where as the Detail Item is not.

At scale 1/8″ = 1′-0″.

At scale 1″ = 1′-0″.

At scale 1/32″ = 1′-0″.