Force Update¶
Panel: Families | Button: Force Update
Forces Revit to treat the open family as modified, so that projects using it will offer to reload it.
What it does¶
Operating on the family currently open in the Family Editor:
Creates a temporary new family type.
Saves the family.
Deletes the temporary type.
Saves the family again.
The type change between the two saves is what makes Revit register the family as changed.
When to use this¶
Use this when a family file on disk has been altered — typically overwritten by a copy from elsewhere — but Revit does not recognise it as different and will not offer to reload it into a project.
Requirements¶
The family must be open in the Family Editor and be the active document. If it is not, the tool reports “This is not a family document.” and exits. It does not operate on a family selected in the project browser.
Notes¶
Unlike Change Category, this tool writes to disk — it saves the family twice, over the file it was opened from. There is no prompt and no backup beyond Revit’s own.
The temporary type is created and removed automatically; no cleanup is needed.
If either save fails the tool aborts and reports it, which can leave the temporary type in place. Check the family’s type list before saving it yourself.
Progress is reported in the output window.
