How to create a schedule in Revit: doors, rooms, material takeoffs and export to Excel

How to create a schedule in Revit comes down to one idea: a schedule pulls the information already in the model (door marks, room names, wall materials) into a table. It is a view, just like a plan or a section. Editing a cell edits the element itself, and the other way round.

This article works through Chapter 15 of the Institute's textbook Autodesk Revit 2027 for Architectural Documentation, ordered the way you actually work. Screenshots come from Revit 2027, English interface. To learn the documentation stage in full, see the Revit Architecture course.

Step 1 — open Schedules and pick a category

The command sits on the View tab, Create panel, Schedules button. Architectural work mostly uses the first three items.

Click Schedule/Quantities to open the New Schedule dialog; Autodesk covers it in Create a Schedule or Quantity.

Keep Schedule building components selected (Schedule keys is an advanced mechanism). Type Doors and the list shrinks to one line, so you cannot pick a look-alike.

Steps 2 and 3 — choose fields, filter, sort and group

Click OK and the Schedule Properties dialog opens with five tabs.

The four small buttons in the middle, top to bottom:

Read the field names back. The screenshot shows the trap: type Width and Revit matches Rough Width; type Height and it matches Head Height. Rough Width is the rough opening, larger than the door. If it is wrong, remove the field and add the right one.

The Filter tab picks rows with a field, a comparison and a value.

The eight rows are joined by And, so every row must hold. For "or", split into several schedules.

Tip. Vietnamese door schedules are usually sorted by Level then Mark, with Header on for Level and a Count footer: a title per level and the number of doors on each.

Step 4 — format and finish the door schedule

The Formatting tab formats one column at a time: pick it on the left, set it on the right.

The Appearance tab formats the whole table and only affects schedules placed on sheets.

All five tabs reopen at any time from the schedule view's Properties palette.

Put together, that is how to create a schedule in Revit; the result is the door schedule of the sample building.

Open a schedule and the ribbon gains the Modify Schedule/Quantities tab.

Because a schedule is a view, typing D1 into a row's Mark cell renumbers the door on the plan at once — the fastest way to renumber in bulk.

Revit room schedules and missing Vietnamese characters

A room schedule is built the same way; just pick the Rooms category. Add Perimeter when you need skirting quantities.

Sort by Level then Number, Header on for Level, a Totals footer and Calculate totals on Area, and you have areas per level. This is net room area, set by Room Area Computation; for gross floor area, schedule the Areas category instead.

The fix, as measured in the textbook:

1. On the Annotate tab, click the small arrow at the corner of the Text panel to open the text Type Properties.
2. In Type, choose Schedule Default.
3. Change Text Font to Arial and click OK.
4. Do the same for Schedule Headers and Schedule Titles if headings use Vietnamese.

The schedule view on screen still shows it wrongly, because it uses the interface font; only sheets and prints matter. The Body text box on the Appearance tab likewise only affects sheets.

Revit material takeoff for quantities

A normal schedule counts elements; a Material Takeoff breaks out each material layer to give plaster, cladding, tiling and paint quantities. Autodesk explains it in Material Takeoff Schedules.

Go to View › Schedules › Material Takeoff and pick a category, such as Walls.

Material: Cost reads the unit cost stored in the material, to multiply in a calculated column.

Every wall produces one row for each layer, so the raw takeoff is long. Collapse it in four steps:

1. Open Sorting/Grouping and set Sort by to Material: Name.
2. Clear Itemize every instance.
3. On Formatting, select Material: Area and choose Calculate totals.
4. Do the same for Material: Volume.

One row per material remains, with total area and volume.

A row reading 0.00 may not be zero: raise the decimal places in Field Format. Always check each material once by hand, such as plaster area as perimeter times height minus doors; a large gap means the model is wrong.

Schedules a housing documentation set usually includes (practice, not a software rule):

Buildings with many identical apartments often schedule one element on its own, such as railings.

Export a Revit schedule to Excel

Open the schedule view, go to File › Export › Reports and choose Schedule (Room/Area Report is a room report with graphics).

Click Save and the options dialog appears.

Tip. Excel with Vietnamese regional settings often uses a comma as the decimal mark, which breaks comma-separated columns. Set Field delimiter to semicolon.

Revit cannot import numbers back from Excel; for bulk edits, edit in the schedule or use Dynamo.

Try it: door, room and finish quantity schedules

Exercise 27 — door and room schedules, on a model that already has doors and rooms.

1. View › Schedules › Schedule/Quantities. Type Doors, choose Doors, name it BANG-CUA-DI.
2. Add Mark, Family and Type, Width, Height, Level, Count. Read Scheduled fields back and note each exact name.
3. Sorting/Grouping: Sort by Level, Then by Mark, Header on for Level.
4. Formatting: set Heading to SỐ HIỆU, LOẠI CỬA, RỘNG, CAO, TẦNG, SỐ LƯỢNG (mark, type, width, height, level, count).
5. Click OK and note the number of rows.
6. Clear Itemize every instance, note the new row count and explain the difference.
7. Select a row, click Highlight in Model, note what happens.
8. Change one row's Mark to D1 and check the door tag on the plan.
9. Build a room schedule the same way, sorted by Level with area totals per level.
10. Compare the total room area of the first floor with the areas on the room tags.

Exercise 28 — finish quantities, on the same model.

1. View › Schedules › Material Takeoff. Choose Walls, name it KL-HOAN-THIEN-TUONG.
2. Add Material: Name, Material: Area, Material: Volume. Click OK and note the raw row count.
3. Sorting/Grouping: Sort by Material: Name, clear Itemize every instance. Note the new count.
4. Formatting: choose Calculate totals for both number columns; turn on Grand totals in Sorting/Grouping.
5. For any row reading 0.00, raise the decimal places in Field Format.
6. Note the total area of the largest material.
7. Pick a room, work out the wall plaster area by hand from perimeter and height, minus doors. Compare with the schedule and explain the gap.
8. Add a Material Takeoff for Floors to get floor tiling areas.
9. File › Export › Reports › Schedule; note the two formats in Files of type.
10. Export to CSV, open it in Excel and check the columns split correctly. Save the project.

Common schedule problems

Frequently asked questions

How do I export a Revit schedule to Excel?

File › Export › Reports › Schedule and choose CSV. If Excel uses a decimal comma, set Field delimiter to semicolon.

Why does my Revit schedule have so many rows?

Itemize every instance is on. Clear it and sort by the field to group on, such as Mark or Material: Name.

Can I use Revit quantities directly for cost estimates?

As source data, yes, but check them by hand. Estimating quantities follow their own measurement rules; see what is quantity take-off.

Related articles

• How to export Revit drawings to CAD and PDF — place schedules on sheets, then export the set
• How to create a floor in Revit — the material layers behind a tiling takeoff
• How to create a Revit family — shared parameters that show up in schedules