This is the first of many Lessons outlining how to use Revit as an Architect. We will go over the basics as well as some advanced topics in these lessons. But first thing's first; we need to download the app before we can learn how to use it.

Getting Access to Autodesk Software

Autodesk (the company that created Revit) will tie your license to your Autodesk account. Getting your license however is different depending on whether you are already a professional who has graduated vs someone who is still in school. Either way though you will need to create an account.

Navigate in your web browser to revit's website. Once you're on the website you'll need to either sign in to your Autodesk account or create one. If you're a student you still need to create an Autodesk account, but there are a few added steps to getting your student license. To create an account once you're at the linked above website navigate to the "Sign in" button at the upper right of the page. There will be a button to create an account if you don't already have one.

Applying for your Educational License

If you're a student, and chances are if you're here you qualify, then you'll need to apply for the student license. To do that navigate to the autodesk education page and click on the "Get started" button in the middle of the page.

You will be prompted to sign in and once you do you will be asked to provide 3 points of information. Tell it your Country, that you're a Student, what type of institution you're a part of, and then your birthday then hit "next". Now you need to prove the information you provided. On the second screen input the name of the institution, enrollment/graduation dates and then hit "next" again.

Sometimes there is another step for confirming your status with an email, but once these steps are complete you should be confirmed and eligible for the educational access to the Autodesk Line of products. Not limited to but including Revit.

Downloading Revit

Just in case you've left the page since completing the previous steps navigate to the autodesk educational software page and scroll down to the "Revit" card. There should be a button that either says "Get started" or "Get product" the former just means you need to sign in still, but either way click it. From there make sure the dropdowns are correct for your system, the version of Revit your office or institution suggests, and your institutions language. This book of lessons was rewritten with Revit 2022, but we recommend using the latest version available. Not much changes between versions.

Once you've confirmed all the dropdowns click that "install" button. This uses Autodesk's automatic install system, but in any case where it doesn't work there is a little arrow next to the install button where you can choose to download and install the app manually.

Once the file is downloaded (either the webinstall or manual version) run it and let it do it's thing. Follow on-screen instructions as this may change between devices.

Once all steps are completed Revit should be ready to run!

Downloading Revit Default Content

Autodesk in later versions like 2022 has decided not to ship all of their default library of assets with the installs, in this series of lessons we use some of the extended library assets so to make sure you have those available to you follow these steps below.

Firstly navigate to Autodesk Revit 2022 Content. As stated before we are using Revit 2022 for this, so you may need to do some research yourself for your version if it's different than ours. We've found that a quick google of "revit 2022 default content" is a reliable query for getting our provided link, just try that but for your version if you are using a different one.

Once there scroll down to the table and look for the row for content in your language. For Oklahoma State University students and for us in this book we will be using the pack called "US English Content for Revit 2022". Download that file and once it's downloaded run it. Follow the steps provided if any.

These libraries being downloaded does not link them to Revit automatically, you will likely need to import them to your model manually when you need to use them. We will go over the steps to doing this later, but all you need to know is that the content (on windows at least) is located at C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\RVT 2022\Libraries when you need to find them.