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On-Screen Takeoff - Common Issues with Auto Name (Why is Auto Count Returning Bad Results?)

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Issue

So, you decided to try the all-new Auto Name on your plan set, but the results are not what you were expecting, in fact, many of the Pages show Sheet No. and/or Sheet Names that are completely wrong?

Example

All the Pages are same size (24x36), they are all the same scale (1/8"=1'):

On-Screen Takeoff Cover Sheet selecting the Pages on which to run Auto Name

We selected them all and set the Sheet No. and Sheet Name where it was shown on the Page in the Set Location dialog box.

On-Screen Takeoff Auto Name setting Location for Sheet name and number

But, when we run Auto Name, many of the results are garbled:

On-Screen Takeoff Auto Name returned incorrect results

Now, you may be saying, "this is no better than the old Autonaming tool and now I'll have to rename all these Pages or use a 3rd party app to do it!"

But wait!

Please don't give up, this is not a fault with Auto Name, but with our assumption that the Architect put the Sheet No. and Sheet Name in the exact same spot on like-sized drawings.

Discussion

Why did this happen?

If we select one of the Pages that was incorrectly named, we can see that the Sheet Name and Sheet Number location boxes are not where we placed them on the reference drawing!

On-Screen Takeoff Auto Name returned incorrect results - sheet number and name not in expected location

Verified on another mis-named Page...

On-Screen Takeoff Auto Name returned incorrect results - sheet number and name not in expected location 2

Note

This is because the plan itself has the information in a slightly different place and is not a problem with the Auto Name tool. This is also very easy to "fix", we just have to run Auto Name a couple times to accommodate for this formatting issue.

Resolution

So, let's go back to the first block of mis-named Pages, select them, and click the On-Screen Takeoff Auto Name Reset button button

On-Screen Takeoff Cover Sheet showing the Auto Name reset button location

Next, click the On-Screen Takeoff Auto Name Set Location Button button, this allows us to change the Sheet No. and Sheet Name location boxes to account for the change in location on the plan.

On-Screen Takeoff Auto Name set location of sheet name and number again

Let's check a couple of other Pages from that block, just to ensure they share the same Sheet No. and Sheet Name locations:

On-Screen Takeoff Auto Name verify Set location is correct

Click the alt= button and all Pages in "Ready" Status will be re-processed.

You can see our result are exactly what we would expect now.

On-Screen Takeoff Auto Name now returns correct/expected results

You can Reset and re-run Auto Name on any Pages in your project.

Note

While it would be great if the Sheet Numbers and Sheet Names were always in the same place (at least within a plan set), that's not something under your or our control.