From the course: Revit 2022: Essential Training for Architecture (Imperial and Metric)

Understanding Revit release versions and file formats - Revit Tutorial

From the course: Revit 2022: Essential Training for Architecture (Imperial and Metric)

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Understanding Revit release versions and file formats

- [Instructor] Like most products in the Autodesk portfolio, Revit has a major new release annually, with several smaller feature releases being made available to customers on subscription throughout the year. Each major release is enumerated with the year, like 2020, or 2021. With smaller releases receiving a point designation such as 2021.1 or dot two, and so on. Each major release of Revit introduces a new file format, point releases do not. The critical point to understand here is that once you upgrade to a new release of Revit, you cannot save backwards. In other words, Revit is not backward compatible. So it is very important that you know which version of Revit you are using, and that anyone you wish to share Revit files with is using the same version as you. It is not advisable to attempt to work with users on a different Revit version. If you do so, the person with the more recent version will be able to open the older files just fine, but if they save them there will be no way to resave them back to the older version, making it impossible for the person with the older release to access those files moving forward. Now, when speaking of Revit versions here, we are only discussing the version number, the year, not the variation of Revit, such as Revit, or the AEC collection, or Revit LT. Each of those variations use the same file format each year. So let's look at the file format issue within the software. It's easy to identify the current version of a file before you open it, directly within the Open dialog from within Revit. So begin opening a model, browse to the folder where the file is located, and then simply select it in the Open dialog. The current version of that file will be listed beneath the preview, over on the right-hand side. If the file you want to open was saved in an earlier version than your current version of Revit, you can simply open the file. When you select it, and you click Open, you will get a message that the model is being upgraded. It will indicate to you that this is a one-time process, and that you need to save the file, to prevent needing to do this again in the future. But do keep in mind, that once you save the file, it will permanently be upgraded to your current release. If the file you are opening is from a previous version and contains links, then not only will it need to upgrade the host file, but it will also need to temporarily upgrade the linked files as well. So you'll get a message about the host model being upgraded. And then following that, you'll get a second message for each of the linked files that are being upgraded. Now do keep in mind that that's a temporary upgrade for the links. So if want to make the entire upgrade permanent, start with the linked files, open and upgrade those first, save them, then open the host file, upgrade it, and save it to complete the process and avoid having to do it again in the future. So what happens if you try to open a version that was saved in a later version than the version of Revit you have? Well, the first clue you'll get is if you select the file and the version indicated over on the right, beneath the preview, says Version Unknown. But if you go ahead and try and open the file anyway, then a message will be displayed that tells you that this was saved in a later version and cannot be retrieved. So allow me to reiterate, it is absolutely critical that all team members be working in the same Revit file version. The same year number. Revit's not being backward compatible is the built-in, or as-designed behavior of the software, and there is no workaround. So please, plan carefully.

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