The model is done and the sheets are set up. What's left is dimensions: three strings along every facade, on every floor, and then the elevations. Somebody has to click every jamb.
Revit has an auto dimension option built in, and plenty of people never find it. It gets you part of the way. An auto dimension Revit plugin covers the rest, and this article shows both.
Automatic dimensions in Revit, without a plugin
The Aligned Dimension tool can dimension a whole wall from one click.
- On the Annotate tab, click Aligned, or type DI.
- On the Options Bar (on the ribbon from Revit 2026), choose what walls are measured to: Wall centerlines, Wall faces, Center of core or Faces of core.
- Change Pick from Individual References to Entire Walls. The Options button beside it becomes available.
- Click Options and tick what the string should catch: Openings, by Centers or by Widths, Intersecting Walls and Intersecting Grids.
- Click a wall, then click clear of it to place the string.
Revit builds one string along that wall, with a witness line at every reference you ticked. They're ordinary dimensions, so they move with the model.
Where the native tool stops
It's a good tool for one wall. A full set is a different job.
- It works from your picks. Revit won't read the view and decide which walls make up a facade, so you choose every wall yourself.
- You get one string per pass. Openings, then partitions and grids, then the overall are three passes, with the options changed in between.
- It works in the view you're in. The next floor plan starts from nothing.
- Levels aren't walls. In an elevation, the floor-to-floor string is still one pick per level.
Twelve floor plans and four elevations is a lot of picking. Then the facade moves and you check every string again.
Dimension every facade in the view in one run. The 7-day trial covers all 52 NexionTools tools and needs no card. Start the 7-day trial
What an auto dimension Revit plugin adds
NexionTools has an Auto Dimensions command, on the NexionTools tab in the ribbon. It reads the active view, works out the facade runs and places the stacked strings itself.
- Open a plan, elevation or section and click Auto Dimensions.
- The dialog lists the wall types in that view, with counts. Tick the ones you want and set the scope to Exterior, Interior or All.
- Choose the strings. In a plan, each facade run gets up to three: Openings, Segments & grids and Overall.
- In an elevation or section, the same three run below or above the facade, and height strings run beside it: Opening heads & sills, Floor-to-floor and Overall height.
- Set the side, the first offset, the spacing between strings and the dimension style, then click Place Dimensions.
A summary tells you how many dimensions landed, in how many strings, across how many wall runs.
The results are native aligned dimensions. They update when the model changes, and you can edit or delete any of them. Doors and windows are dimensioned to the unit itself by default, with the wall opening or the centreline as alternatives. The whole run is one undo.
Run it again in the same view after a design change and it replaces only the set it placed before. Dimensions you added by hand stay where they are. Your settings are remembered, so the next view starts where you left off.
What it won't do
- The output needs review. It places what the geometry supports, and your office standard may want less. Expect to delete some.
- It works on the active view, so you run it once per plan or elevation.
- Curved walls aren't dimensioned. The dialog tells you how many it left out.
- It dimensions to wall faces or wall centrelines, never to core faces. If your standard measures to the core, Revit's own Faces of core setting is still the way to do it.
- A grid that crosses the facade at an angle is skipped.
If you searched for a free download
Looking for a free one? Auto Dimensions is a paid tool, and there is no free version of it.
What costs nothing is the 7-day trial. It covers all 52 tools, needs no card, and the 7 days start the first time you open the tools in Revit. That's enough to run it on a real set and judge the strings for yourself.
12 other NexionTools tools are free forever. They're listed in the free Revit plugins article.
Run it on the elevation you've been putting off. NexionTools works in Revit 2024 to 2027, the trial covers all 52 tools for 7 days with no card, and 12 tools stay free afterwards. Start the 7-day trial