Inconsistent Units Settings UI in Revit

There are several very different ways of getting to Units Settings in the Revit User Interface.  Most of them are not very intuitive - and certainly they are totally different from each other.

Project Unit Settings

There are 3 different icons on the 'Manage' ribbon, depending on your screen resolution and size:

Largest resolution or screen

 If you are operating on a laptop or low resolution, the icon automatically reduces in size, and you may or may not get a text description:

Medium resolution or screen

Smallest resolution or screen

Once you click on the Project Units icon it takes you to the units dialog box, which has a list of different kinds of units:

Once you choose a particular unit type, it gives the project-wide 'Format' settings for that type.  Since this is the project settings, the checkbox at the top is greyed out.   Some of the checkboxes are related only to imperial measurements so would always be greyed out for metric users.

This dialog box is the one common UI that appears for all methods of accessing units - but different items are greyed out in each situation that the dialog box appears.

Dimension Units

• Select a Dimension in the project 
• Click on Edit Type

• Click on the Units Setting property

• This takes you to the Units Format dialog box where you can override the project settings

Alternatively you can access this units dialog box from the Annotation ribbon:

• Click on the Dimensions drop-down arrow

• Select the kind of dimension you want

Schedule Units Settings

• In the Schedule Properties, go to the 'Formatting' tab
• Select a field (on the left)
• Click on the 'Field Format...' button on the right

• Once you click on this, you get the standard Units dialog box
• Typically the 'Use default settings' checkbox is ticked 
• You can untick it if you want to over-ride the project settings

Tag Units Settings

Refer to Revit's Most Hidden Commands (part 2) for more detail on this.  It is quite tricky to find this setting:

• Edit the tag family
• Select and Edit a label

• The parameter in the label may look like it is selected (on the left), but it is probably not
• Select the relevant parameter (on left, even though it shows on the right)

• The 'Properties' icon (a hand) will be enabled
• Click on it

• Finally you get to the units settings, which is normally defaulted to 'Use project settings'

• It is not possible to get to this unit override setting within the project environment (unlike dimensions and schedules)

Summary

Here we have at least 4 completely different ways to access Revit units settings:

Method 1 (Ribbon in the project ):

Method 2 (Dimension Type properties in the project ):

or

Method 3 (Schedule formatting properties in the project ):

Method 4 (Tag properties in the Family Editor ):

Why does something so simple have to be so inconsistent, and complicated ?

Hide Zero Values in Revit Schedules

Revit likes to show a '0' or '0.00' in a schedule when the value is either zero or blank (sometimes).  This is not always desirable - in some situations you may actually want the schedule to show nothing when the value is zero.

There is a way to do this, although it is not in the units or display settings . . . . .

Blank Value Workaround

Let's suppose you have a 'Numeric value' field that is displaying zero values

• The first thing to do in your schedule is to create a new Calculated field called 'Blank' (for example) - make it a Number type (if that is what your desired type is)
• Do not put anything in the formula

• Create another Calculated Value field - in this example I've called it 'Hides Zeros', but it can be whatever you want the title to display in your schedule

•  This time give it a formula something like:
  if(Numeric value > 0, Numeric value, Blank)
• This will hide all zero and negative values

• If you want to display negative values and only hide the zero values, change the > in the formula to =:
  if(Numeric value = 0, Blank, Numeric value)

• The next step is to hide the intermediate calculation columns:
• Go to the Formatting tab and make the 'Numeric value' and Blank' columns hidden

Multiple Elements Per Row

What happens when you have a schedule that displays multiple elements per row, when you have unticked the grouping setting 'Itemise every instance'?
The zeros may return!
In which case refer to this post on Zero values in multiple elements per row Schedules