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ediTiNG eleMeNTs iNTeRacTively 75

an element while pressing the Ctrl key on your keyboard. This technique is useful for quickly
populating a quantity of elements in a design without the required precision of the multiple
picks of the Copy tool.

Copying Using Worksets

if you are working in a model in which worksharing is enabled, be careful when performing any
method of copying. These methods include pasting from the clipboard, mirroring, and arraying,
as well as using the copy tool. copied elements will always be placed on the active workset, not the
workset of the original object. for example, if you are copying chairs that have been placed on
the workset named furniture but your active workset is structure, the copied chairs will be assigned
to the structure workset.

Rotating and Mirroring Elements

Certification When refining or expanding your building design, you will likely find a frequent need to rotate
Objective or mirror one or more objects. Just as with moving or copying, there are a few methods for these
types of interactive operations. We’ll review these methods in the following sections.

Using the Spacebar

You can use the spacebar to rotate an element, both at the time of initial placement and after it
has been placed. In addition to rotating an object in 90-degree increments, pressing the spacebar
will locate any nearby non-orthogonal references (walls, grids, or reference planes) as rotation
candidates. This is a great time-saving command to become familiar with because you can forgo
the necessity of using an additional tool, such as Rotate And Mirror, after placing an object.
Here are a few examples:
Doors and Windows If you have a door with its swing in the wrong direction, select
it and press the spacebar. You can cycle through all four possible orientations of the door
using the spacebar. The same holds true for windows; however, many window families only
let you flip the window from inside to outside because many windows are symmetrical in
elevation. If you are creating an asymmetrical window family, be sure to add flip controls to
the window family during its creation. These controls allow the spacebar to work on hosted
elements.
Walls If you select a wall, pressing the spacebar flips the element as if it were being
mirrored about its length. Walls flip based on their location line, which often isn’t the
centerline of the assembly. If you aren’t sure which direction your wall is facing, select it
and look for the flip-control arrows. These are always located on the exterior side of walls
(Figure 3.10). You can also use the spacebar to flip the direction of an object. Simply select
the object and hit the spacebar or use it to toggle through placement options while you’re
locating a component.

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