CAD tip # 12118:

Question

CAD

% platform category

Easy frames and tables in Revit text annotations. An undocumented trick.

You can easily insert text framing or whole tables in Revit text annotations. Your tables and cells can be designed simply by typing the "+" (plus) and "-" (minus) characters on the keyboard. At the moment you send this magical string by pressing Enter, they will surprisingly create the indicated table.

So e.g. by typing:

+----+--+-+

you will generate the first row of a table containing three columns, where the first column will be 4x wider than the third column and the second column will be 2x wider than the third one. And right away you can type in the values into the cells of the the newly created table. You can move between the cells using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys. If you want just a text frame (a table of a 1x1 size), type the initial string:

+-+

You can use mouse dragging to change the column widths and row heights of the generated table.

See the the video illustrating how to create such "scripted" tables with this "secret" function:

Revit

*CAD

21.1.2019 21023×

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applies to: Revit ·

See also:
Tip 14681:	How to quickly convert XLS tables to CSV format without opening Excel?
Tip 14472:	Overview of CAD formats supported in Inventor 2026 (import/export/AnyCAD).
Tip 14384:	Wrong encoding of XLS/CSV/TXT files exported from CAD. Wrong characters on command line.
Tip 14339:	Time tracker for Autodesk Inventor - how much time have I spend on a design?
Tip 14075:	Overview of CAD formats supported in Inventor 2025 (import/export/AnyCAD).

Selected tip: CAD formats supported in Inventor 2014 (import/export).

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